Longing for the Presence of the Lord (Psalm 84)

Good morning Cityview It is great to be with you today. Thank you for welcoming me and Sarah back. We are, we’re doing well. And so we hope you’re doing well as well. And the Lord is continuing to work through the ministry of Cityview. Here. We trust that he is. And so thank you, Brandon for the invitation. Come back. It’s always a pleasure to open God’s word. And I’m looking forward to our time together. Today, we have the opportunity of opening God’s Word together at Psalm 84. Psalm 84. So go ahead and turn in your Bibles there. And I was reading through the book of Psalms a few weeks ago. And this is one of those chapters that I lingered on a little longer. It stood out to me. It’s a it’s a well known Psalm. Charles Spurgeon, when he preached on this chapter, he, he said, quote, here flows a living stream, bring your buckets with you. I love that image. hope you brought your bucket with you today. This is a river full of riches, that we just get to dive into together. So this morning, like to take you on a journey through this Psalm. The Psalm is, it’s meant to be read as a journey. It’s a song that was most likely sung by God’s people as they were traveling to Jerusalem for a festival. And as we read through it, you’ll see that there are three distinct movements through this song and it feels like you’re traveling with the psalmist as he’s on the move on this journey. So let me read through the entire chapter, Psalm 84. And then we’ll begin our journey together through it. Okay. Let’s begin Psalm. Psalm 84, starting in verse one, is how lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty. My soul yearns, even faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home and the Swallow and nests for herself where she may have her young, a place near your altar. Lord Almighty my King and my God bless it are those who dwell in your house they are ever praising you. Bless it are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs. The autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength, until each appears before God in Zion. Hear my prayer. Lord God Almighty, listen to me, God of Jacob, look on our shield. Oh, god, look with favor on your Anointed One. Better is one day in your courts than 1000 elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. For the Lord God is a sun and shield the Lord bestows favor and honor and no good thing does he withhold from those who walk is blameless. Lord Almighty blessing is the one who trusts in You. Amen. Psalm 84, is all about the presence of the Lord. Specifically a wholehearted and all consuming passion to be in the presence of the Lord. This is an exclamation from someone who just can’t hold it in any longer. God’s dwelling place where where God resides, as mentioned about nine times in 12 verses and he’s picturing what it would be like, and then the the journey he would take to get there. And he’s overcome with this, this deep sense of longing. The Psalmist wants to be with the Lord. What’s his I think sort of like the the feeling a child might have about going to their grandparents house. At least that was the case for me growing up. When I was a child, I would, I would dream about going to their house. I knew that my grandparents have to spoil me with things that I didn’t get at home. Doughnuts, candy. My grandma’s french toast was the best. I think she just used a ton of butter. And that’s what made it so good. I would long to go there. And even as we were in the car on our way to their house, you could feel the anticipation building. And then when I was there, I never wanted to leave. And it wasn’t the house that I longed for, but it was the people that were in the house that I longed for. That’s the kind of longing the psalmist feels for the presence of the Lord. He wants to be in the House of Lords. Lord, because that’s where the Lord is. When he has this longing because there is great blessing that comes in the presence of the Lord. In this passage, there are three distinct blessing statements that we see come from the presence of the Lord. So those are sort of the three stops along the way on this journey that we’re going to go through together. So my hope for us this morning is that you’ll have the same longing this almost feels, but then you’ll also experience the same blessing that the psalmist experiences as well. So let’s, let’s consider our first blessing on this journey. It’s the blessing of worship, a blessing of, of worship, versus wanting to again, says how lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty, my soul yearns, even faints for the courts of the Lord, my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Again, we see this, this intense longing for the presence of the Lord, he wants to be in the temple. That’s where God’s presence was. He he sees the temple as lovely. No doubt it was a beautiful building. But he’s not referring to the building itself. Here. He’s, he’s saying that the temple is lovely to him. It’s beloved, because of the one who lives in the temple. You can just feel his intensity. Like man, I wish I was there right now. says his soul yearns. He even faints. His heart in his flesh cry out, it’s like everything within him is just overflowing in this expression of longing. So as we as we talk about the presence of the Lord, it’s worth remembering that here in the Old Testament, God’s presence was in the temple. And you had to go to the temple in order to experience God’s presence. And even then, God’s presence was behind the veil. No one could go into the holiest place except the high priest one day per year. It’s different today. For us. We don’t have a temple in the way that the psalmist did. There’s no one building that we go to to experience God’s presence. Even here in this building. This building is not special in and of itself. But for us today, God’s presence is among his people, both collectively, but then also individually. First Corinthians chapter three, verse 16, says, Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? So when we talk about God’s presence for us today, it refers to the closeness of a relationship with Him through prayer, through fellowship with other believers, hearing his voice through his word, the constellation of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, when we gathered together on a Sunday morning as the body that’s how we experience God’s presence today. You know, I enjoy watching documentaries, some of you might know, I feel like I always learned something new from them. And I recently watched a documentary about boy bands. And it talks about the the mass hysteria in our society throughout the generations over over boy bands. There’s some some recent examples of this. But it really started back in like the 60s with The Beatles, The Beatles, and I wasn’t there myself. But I saw clips of the these vast crowds just going crazy to try and get a few inches closer to the Beatles. Or even just to reach out and touch them. I saw one clip of the Beatles returning home from a tour and they were flying into a certain airport in the UK and there was a large crowds 1000s of people waiting at the airport to see them land. And the police had to set up barricades so that the people wouldn’t run out onto the tarmac to get closer to them. And a few young girls actually fainted when they saw the plane land and the beetles walking off of the plane. And so they call it in the paramedics and they had to treat these girls who had fainted, but there was a large crowd on the side of the Barricade and so they had to bring the girls over the barricades in order to have more space to treat them. So what happened was, some other girls saw what had happened. And so they decided to act like they had fainted, so that they too could be taken across the barricade and get a little closer to this band. It was a remarkable It’s crazy even.
But they had an intense longing to just be in the presence of the Beatles. I think it’s worth pausing to ask the question. When was the last time you had that kind of longing to be in the presence of the Lord? Have you ever had that longing says that his his soul, his heart, his flesh, they all longed for the presence of the Lord. Everything within him desire this, even faint for the Lord. I hope that you will have this desire today. Especially if you’ve been walking with the Lord for a while. Thank you, if we aren’t careful, our face can grow stale. And I don’t want to feed on yesterday’s bread. In my own life, whenever I’ve, I felt that that staleness start to creep up in my own heart. There’s a particular prayer from the Valley of vision. That’s been especially helpful to me. There’s there’s one line that I keep going back to, says, Lord, help me not to treat excellent matter in a defective way. Hey, Laura, I know your word is excellent. The work you’re doing in my life is, is excellent. Being in Your presence is the best thing that I could ever experience. So Lord helped me not to treat that as if it were useless. Defective. I’m convinced that if, if you prayer, if you pray that kind of prayer regularly, you will see in your own hearts, this longing start to stir up your heart, your soul, your flesh, will begin to faint for the presence of the Lord. The rest of our passage shows us why we should have this desire. So let’s keep moving along on this journey. And in verse three, the Psalm is gives us an image of what this longing is like for him. He says, Look at the birds. Look at the birds, verse three says, says even the sparrow has found a home and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young, a place near your altar, Lord Almighty, my king. Oh my god. He’s, he’s picturing the temple in his mind because he’s been there before. And he remembers seeing birds flying around in the roof of the temple. like, Man, I wish I could just be one of those birds. Like they don’t realize how close they get to be to God’s presence. Like they don’t know how good they have it being a temple bird. I guess the difference between being a suburban bird versus a Disneyworld bird. I just picture the scene with me. I know this isn’t real. But imagine there’s a bunch of birds going to a bird conference. And they’re meeting other birds and they’re talking and this one bird says, says to another bird says, oh, nice to meet you. Where do you live? Where’s your nest at? And the other bird flies like oh, well, my my nest is in this subdivision and it’s on this street. And there’s this this one house and in the backyard. There’s a there’s a nice maple tree. That’s where my nest is. How about you? Where do you live? Where’s your nest? The other birds like well, I live in Florida, actually. And my nest is actually in Magic Kingdom. And I just just so happens to be at the peak of Cinderella’s castle. And the other bird is like, Oh, you’re one of those birds. And so I think that’s the picture the psalmist wants us to see here. He’s like man, like those temple birds are blessed. They don’t realize how good they have it. I wish I could just be one of those birds does have my home in the temple with the Lord does it even the sparrow finds a home at the altars of the Lord. So this is this is where we come to this the first blessing on this journey together. I mentioned before we see with these three distinct blessing statements from the presence of the Lord in this psalm. The first blessing is the blessing of of worship. Verse four, he says, Blessed are those who dwell in your house. They are ever praising you and God’s temple in the house of the Lord in God’s presence there is worship, as worship is a great blessing. See, worship blesses God. This is what we most often think about when we hear worship, gathering with God’s people to sing praise to his name, what we’re doing right now. He’s worthy of our worship. He enjoys receiving our worship. So in that sense, worship is a blessing to God, we bless God when we worship. But in a different sense, worship is a blessing to us. See, we were created as worshiping beings. We always worship something, whether we’re worshiping God the way we ought to, or we’re worshipping an idol, something else the worship is, is not just singing songs on a Sunday. Romans 12, one, we ought to present our entire bodies as a living sacrifice, which is our spiritual worship. Whatever we do, we ought to do it for the glory of God. So the point is, whenever we worship God, we are doing what we are made to do. We align our heart, our our soul, our body with God’s purpose for us. Things are the way they were meant to be. There’s great blessing in that. That’s like when, when every instrument in an orchestra is playing in tune. Even though there’s different parts there, they come together, and it creates a beautiful sound. It sounds like that’s the way things were supposed to be. You can think about it like, like working your your dream job. There was a big difference between working simply for a paycheck, and working your dream job where it feels like you’re never actually working a day in your life. There’s something powerful and fulfilling about knowing that this is where God wants me to be, was great blessing in that. When you live in the presence of the Lord, when you experience this blessing of a life of worship. That’s what you were created to do. So long for the presence of the Lord. Worship the Lord with all of your life, you’ll experience this great blessing. So that’s the first stop on our journey through Psalm 84. And it took a little bit longer than the next two stops will take had to lay a little bit of groundwork there. So we’ll move a little bit more quickly through these next two. We see the second stop on our journey is, is about the blessing of strength, the blessing of strength and we see it right away in verse five comes, comes right after verse four. It says, Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. The blessing of strength is for those who have the highways of the Lord in their hearts. Here we really see the the movement in this psalm, right in the first section, we see that the psalmist is looking from afar at the temple, God’s house and he’s, he’s wishing he was there. Then here now he’s on his way to the house. He’s on the highways to Zion. He’s moving closer and closer. He’s making a pilgrimage to the house of the Lord. And he’s experiencing the blessing of the presence of the Lord throughout the journey that he’s taking. He’s He’s treasuring in his heart, the presence of the Lord that nourishes him and sustains him for the journey. It’s almost like he’s, he’s singing to his own heart as you go. So he doesn’t get discouraged. I worked at a summer camp on the Adirondack Mountains of New York for a summer, it was a wilderness camp for boys. And we would take overnight backpacking trips throughout the mountains, with our campers, almost every time there would be, we would start the hike at the bottom of this mountain, and we would look up and see where we were, where we were headed. Like, yeah, we’re gonna, we’re gonna be up there in a few hours. And almost every time there would be one of the young boys who would look off in and see where we were about to go. And maybe never done anything like that before. And would get a little intimidated. It wasn’t sure if he could make it to the top. You know, it’s going to take several hours for us to make it there. And almost every time it wasn’t a physical problem, it was more so a mental problem. As counselors, we, we knew that the boys were physically able to make it to the top. We wouldn’t go on the hike if we didn’t know for sure that they could make it. But we needed to do our best on the journey to encourage the campers to persevere. Because when you get tired, when you start getting a little hungry, your backpack feels a little heavier than it did before. You start telling yourself to stop like, well, we’ve made it most of the way that counts, right? We can just round up. I don’t think I’m gonna make it. I just don’t feel like it anymore. I’m too tired.
So we do is we encourage the boys, we distract them from their fatigue and we encourage them to keep going to give them strength, we’re almost there. Keep pushing. That’s almost how this part of the song feels to he. He’s reminding his heart along this pilgrimage, that the Lord will sustain him with strength. And God’s presence with him means that God’s strength is with him. And we need the strength of the Lord because we get so weak in our face so often. In our own power, we can do nothing. But by God’s grace, we have everything we need. In verse six shows us what this blessing of strength looks like. It says as they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs, the autumn rains also cover it with pools. You know, this verse I think, is so fascinating to me. We don’t really know where the Valley of Baca is, if you look on a map, you won’t find it anywhere there. But I think the reason why is because it’s a play on words. The Psalmist is, is trying to get our attention here. You know, some think that the Hebrew word Baka is the name of a type of shrub or a tree that lived in this arid, dry desert Valley. And that could be the case I can see that here. But I think maybe differently the word Baka is the same root as the word for weeping. So as they go through the Valley of Baca, the valley of weeping, they make it a place of springs. You can just see the the dry, lifeless, weeping Valley turns into a place of nourishment of springs of, of new life. See, the Lord brings nourishment or or new life to us when we go through this valley of weeping because of his presence with us. But it gets even better than that. Because it says the last line there says the autumn rains also cover it with pools. The word for pools in Hebrew is Barracuda. Which is also the word in the Old Testament for blessing. We can see that the Valley of Baca is not only turned into a place of springs, but Baca is turned into Barraca. To see the the valley of weeping is turned into springs, but then it’s also turned into a place of blessing for us. So the Lord takes whatever we face on the journey of our lives. And he turns it into not only nourishment for our faith, but also he turns it into a blessing for us. And even in the seasons of life that are marked by by weeping long for the Lord’s presence in your life. He will give you the strength to endure, you may still go through the valley. But the Lord will sustain your faith through it. On Genesis chapter 50, at the end of the story of Joseph, after all of the suffering and the trials, and the difficulty that he went through in his life, when he confronts his brothers in Egypt, he’s able to say, You meant it for evil. But God meant it for good. So that many people will be saved. In God’s presence, there is strength for your journey. He will not fail you. He will bring you to the end. That’s why I think in verse seven, it says they go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion. The blessing of strength doesn’t go from strength to weakness, we get tired, we might start the day feeling pretty good. But then by the end of it, we get tired. It’s the same thing with our faith. There’s there’s moments where we feel strong in our faith, then we get tired, we get weak. The Lord will not grow weary, his strength will never fade. His strength will never run out. He’s so certain about this, that he can confidently say that each one who makes this journey and is strengthened by the Lord will appear before God in Zion. Each one will appear before God. When God strengthens your faith through the journey, you can be confident that he will sustain you to the end. So in those moments, when we feel weak, we need his strength. We can cry out with Verse eight says here my prayer, Lord God Almighty, listen to me, God of Jacob. Like give me the strength. I need the strength right now. Lord, hear my prayer. The Apostle Paul fell this in his life in ministry as well. He says in Second Corinthians chapter 12, says, But he said to me, the Lord said to me, My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships and persecutions in in difficulties, for when I am weak, then I have a strong, so long for the presence of the Lord, because you will be blessed with the strength that he supplies will sustain your faith through anything that you will face in this life. That’s the second stop on this journey through Psalm 84. The first stop the psalmist is, is looking at the House of Lords from afar. He he sees the blessing of worship, and stop number two, he sees. He’s on this route to the house of the Lord, he, he’s experiencing the blessing of strength from the Lord. On the third stop on this journey comes from the final set of verses and the psalmist has arrived. He’s made it, he’s in the house of the Lord. And now he experiences the blessing of God himself. The blessing of God himself. This is what he says in in verse nine, it says, look on our shield, oh, god, look with favor on your Anointed One. You know, one of the greatest questions that the gospel answers is how can we live in God’s presence? We sort of assume that as we’ve been going so far, but the reality is, our sin separates us from God. God is a holy God. He can’t stand sin in His presence. Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden, because of their sin. I don’t know about you. But sometimes I feel that in my own heart, when I sin against God, it feels like I’ve been rejected by him, I don’t feel worthy to go into His presence. So how are we to live in God’s presence? I think this verse is, is the key. And this verse is, it’s one of the one of those instances in scripture where the original author didn’t fully understand the significance of what they were writing. Because there was going to be more that will be revealed later on. I think in God’s providence, the Holy Spirit knew exactly what to write here. So what do we say to the Lord? When we stand before Him on that day, and we give an account for our lives? What is our answer going to be? When we’re asked how, how are you to live in God’s presence? When we think that in our hearts, how can I be in God’s presence, because of my sin. I love the way that the modern him puts it says to this I hold, my sin has been defeated. Jesus now and ever is my plea. Oh, the chains are released. I can sing I am free. Yet not I, but through Christ in me. He’s saying, saying, Oh, God, like, don’t look at me. Look, look on the face of your Anointed One. Like he’s standing before him. He’s saying, like, I can’t, I’m not worthy to be in your presence God. So look on. Look on Jesus, look at him. There’s nothing that I’ve done on my own that makes me worthy to be in your presence, God. But remember your promise God, remember your Anointed One. Remember what you did to deliver me through him? That’s what our cry will be. How can we live in God’s presence? We say, God, look on the face of your Anointed One, look on Jesus. That’s my plea. And praise be to God that He sent His anointed one, to bridge that gap to bring us into His presence. That’s good news. So I think because of all of this, and even more we can say with with verse 10, better is one day in your courts, and 1000 elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. God’s presence is far better than anywhere else you could be just one day in God’s presence is better than 1000 days anywhere else. It’s even better to be the lowest person in God’s presence than to be the greatest person when the presence of evil
presence of the Lord is good. Such a blessing because we get God Himself. It’s about what God has done through his anointed. It’s about who God is in his character. Now the psalmist continues and he gives us five rapid fire truths about God and just one verse. Verse 11, I think is maybe one of the richest verses in all the Bible. So let these these truths about who God is encourage your heart this morning. Verse 11, he says, it’s for the Lord God is a sun and shield, the Lord bestows favor and honor and no good thing does he withhold from those who walk is blameless. The Lord is a sun. The sun is a source of light. By the Sun we can see, we live in a dark world, don’t we? The Lord guides us into the way we should go. says Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Jesus is the light of the world. He overcomes the darkness. Just one candle can give light to a big dark room. The darkness cannot overcome the Lord. The sun provides a life to our world as well keeps us warm, it gives food to our plants. It gives us energy. The Lord has a son I mean that the Lord sustains. He guides us he overcomes the darkness. He gives his life to our world. But the Lord is also a shield, as the Lord protects his people from the attacks of the enemy. shield of faith is part of the armor of God from Ephesians that we put on collectively together. You know the enemy is aiming his fiery arrows at us. But the Lord extinguishes them. He guards us with his shield. He breaks the bow, he bends the spear. He tells the wars to cease. The Lord fights for you. So be strong and courageous. Do not fear. It’s the Lord who fights for you. He protects you from the enemy. Let him fight for you. Let him be your shield says the Lord bestows favor. You know some translations say the Lord gives grace. Lord gives grace. You know, the Lord is a gracious God. You know, grace is grace is one of those Christian words that we use all the time, right? Like sometimes we lose sight of what that means. Grace is is unmerited favor. I use that word intentionally. I’m thankful that my name is merit because it’s a it’s a constant reminder for me that I don’t have enough merit on my own. But it’s his merit that’s now my own. Nothing that we deserve nothing we can earn it His goodness to us. The Lord Bustos favor, you know, we need grace today. We live in an anti Grace world. There’s no freebies out there. Nothing comes without a cost. And even what we do have, can so easily be taken away from us when we don’t measure up. Not so with the Lord so thankful that his grace for me in Jesus Christ is not dependent on my performance for him. Think that he is a gracious God who bestows favor on all those who trust in Him says the Lord bestows honor. You know, some translations say the Lord bestows glory. When Jesus rose from the dead he he received a new resurrection body. And we have this hope that one day we too when we enter into His presence in glory, we will have a renewed a resurrected body as well. He is the first fruits and we trust that we will follow in him after our bodies will be free from sin to live for eternity unfading imperishable, glorious will our bodies be even now we are we’re being transformed from one degree of glory to another. The Lord is making us more and more like Jesus says no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless. What a tremendous promise to clean to isn’t that one. No good thing will he withhold from those whose walk is blameless. It’s not that the Lord will give you everything you want. That the Lord will give you give you every good thing that you need. If the Lord did not spare his only son, but graciously gave him up for us, all right. How will He not also with Him? Give us all things that we need. Romans eight, Lord is our heavenly Father. He loves to give good gifts to his children. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desire of your heart. So no good thing will he withhold from those whose walk is blameless. Oh, the final blessing is the blessing of God himself. This is who God is. He sent His anointed one to save us. A day in his court is better than 1000 elsewhere. He’s a son, he’s a shield, He bestows favor, He bestows honor and no good thing to see withhold from his beloved children. Playing it’s fitting then, final verse, verse 12, says Lord Almighty, bless it is the one who trusts in You. We get the blessing of God Himself. When we trust in Him. We get to be with him. This is who he is. It’s all about faith, we trust in him. Nothing we do to earn this. It’s his grace to us. We trust in the Lord we, we trust that when we put our faith in Him, we we lean on Him with our lives that will experience this blessing. By grace, we’ve been saved through faith. It’s not our own doing. It’s the gift from God. So every day we live, we live by faith. We live in his presence by faith and we experienced this blessing. So our our journey through Psalm 84 has come to an end. I hope that you’ve enjoyed taking this journey, digging deep into God’s word. I warned you at the beginning that she’d bring your bucket with you hope that your bucket is a little fuller than it was when he came in this morning. There’s so much here that we can cling to for encouragement in our faith, so long for the presence of the Lord. eagerly desire this close relationship with Him, to gather with God’s people, and experience the blessing of worship the journey with God on the way home and experience the blessing of his strength to dwell with God in his house and experience the blessing of God Himself. Let’s pray together.