I invite you to turn tonight in the scriptures to Psalm 84 again. We looked at this psalm this morning, and we will consider part two tonight and look at the other emphases in this psalm, the other two blessings that are described in this psalm as we just considered the first one this morning. This is found on page 583 in those Bibles that are in front of you. 583, Psalm 84, that describes a longing for the worship of the Lord. We'll read the entirety of the psalm again. To the choir master, according to the Giddeth, a psalm of the sons of Korah. How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young. At your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God, Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, and whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs. The early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength. Each one appears before God in Zion. O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer. Give ear, O God of Jacob. Behold our shield, O God, look on the face of your anointed. For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you. And there ends the reading of God's Word. Well, continuing where we left off this morning, what a wonderful psalm that helps us to value what is most important in this life. And one of the things that I think that is very helpful to consider as we left off this morning is to consider this concept of the blessing of the Lord, to think about the Lord's blessing that is upon us. The blessing of the Lord really is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the Scripture. All throughout the Scriptures, we have this statement. You see them tonight. Blessed. Blessed are those. Think of the Beatitudes. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those, the meek. All these statements, all throughout the Scriptures of the blessed, the blessed of the Lord that we hear and encourage us and strengthen us. and with that is sort of built in when we hear that when we hear that we are a blessed people and we say that we are a blessed people we have this sort of built-in thought in life that if we do really well in this life or we do something great then God will bless us it's built into us that way we view blessing as often tied to performance in this life that makes sense doesn't it. That's how life typically works, that if you work hard, things generally may go well for you, and you'll receive some kind of earthly blessing that way. It's built into us often in the way, however, when we look at the things of the scriptures in a way that is not helpful, in a way that we have to think about what the blessing of the Lord really is in this life. It would be wrong. It would be wrong to say, look at the beautiful building that we have built, right? Look at the beautiful building that we have built. Why did this happen? How did this happen? We built this ourselves. We are now a blessed people because we built this building. I wanted to challenge us this morning to say that would be a wrong way of considering the blessing of the Lord. What this psalm is describing is the blessedness that God has always given to his people. I'd love to think about that. The blessedness that God has always given to you that results in certain things in your life that normally would not be true, certain things that would not be the case had the Lord not chosen to bless you. You all have all kinds of blessings from him that you often don't see or don't realize, and that is really the problem, is that we go through life and we really don't see or enjoy the blessings that the Lord has given to us. It's not that we're blessed because we did this. You've always been a blessed people. You've always been a blessed people. You've always been a blessed people, a people who have loved his word, a people who've gathered around his word for many years, a people who've been filled with that Word for many years. And the enjoyment of that Word has been in place a long time before this magnificent building. But at times, you see, the blessing that we receive from the Lord is not always perceived and not always appreciated as it should be. That's our problem. That's our challenge. We fall into dullness. We fall into sleep. We fall into mechanical routine that can go on for years, and we become dull to the Lord's blessings. We become dull to what He has given to us and blessed us with. And so the Lord, amazingly so, adds blessing upon blessing. That's the marvel of this. The Lord adds blessing upon blessing to give us, as we consider this morning, a new beginning, a fresh perspective to enliven the new thing that is really the old thing that we've always enjoyed. To freshen, refreshen us in what is most important. And that's why I think there's no psalm that captures that and helps us with understanding what is most important better than Psalm 84 in that way, for it's describing ultimate satisfaction in this life. It's describing what satisfies us the most in this life. It's describing what I said this morning, finding the great pearl of great price that when you find it, you sell everything else, because this is the most meaningful. It's describing being fulfilled with the only true satisfaction in this life, and that's the sweet blessedness of this psalm in enjoying the Lord himself. Now, we've said this, that in the Westminster Confession, you know, why do you exist. Why did God make you? You exist because for the reason that you would glorify God and that you would enjoy Him. And I say loosely, we should glorify God a lot in the ministry. We should glorify God. We never add to that glory. But one of the things that we don't do well is enjoy Him. enjoying your God. He wants you to enjoy him. And that's what this psalm is about tonight. That's the first blessedness that we described this morning that he's blessed you with, as a blessedness to dwell in his house, ever singing your praise, Selah. That has been in place for a long time in the Escondido URC. Our lives are find the most fulfilled, meaning when we enjoy the Lord in worship, gathering around His Word, receiving from Him the Word of life, receiving from Him the strength, the grace, the mercy that we need as praise results. Praise should fill this building. He should hear praise from us for so great a salvation in response to the gospel that's been announced to us, in response to the fact that He's given us access to come before Him. I know we want to see a lot more right now. But it is still a life of faith until one day we will see with our eyes the beauties of the Lord. And this will be nothing. Now, that's the first blessed description here. But now he adds here more blessings that are described, the psalmist, that are really tied to what flow from worship. And that's what I want you to see tonight. There are other blessings that flow from worship. The psalm now praises God for two very overwhelming blessings that you often take for granted in this life. Blessings that we often go through life and don't think about. Blessings that every day you live and don't realize where it came from. And two other ways that God has blessed us. And the second blessing of this psalm, you'll notice there, says, Blessed are those, verse 5, whose strength is in you. whose heart, you'll notice, it's such a beautiful statement in verse 5, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs. The early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength. Each one appears before God in Zion. That is about one of the most beautiful statements I've ever read in the Scriptures. Listen to it. Consider it. What the psalm is describing here is the life, our life, the Christian life, as a life of a pilgrim. It's not really a pilgrim psalm, but it surely could be considered one, I suppose. You have to appreciate the imagery that's been given to us in this particular psalm. Each one of God's people would appear before him every week in Zion. Think of worship in the Old Covenant. They would live in Jerusalem, some people, and they would come out to the, first the tabernacle, remember the temple that would later be in Jerusalem, and they would come out and they would stream to come up and worship the Lord morning and evening on the Sabbath. But it wasn't just then. The pilgrim days, the feast days, they would come up, and what you would see around Jerusalem is from the hills, you would see from the lands around, it wasn't just those living in Jerusalem, you would see streams of people coming up to the temple to worship the Lord. They would come down from the valleys. They would come into the valleys. They would come down from their farms. There would be people streaming in to worship the Lord. It was a common sight in Israel. God's people making their way to Zion. Now, we read this, and it would be easy to read this and think only of the future. It would be easy to do that tonight. The problem, part of our problem is we think that as Christians at times, and I know I've felt like this, sometimes I feel like we're just trying to make it there. To get to glory. The scriptures not only speak, however, of the rest that is set out for us, held out for us, but there's also a rest that we enjoy now. Think of this, everyone living in Jerusalem, all these people would come from their villages in this beautiful imagery of God's people heading up to enjoy Him in Zion, on the hill. There's something that we experience in this life that we don't often realize that's training us. You think about the normal routine of life that God put in place at creation. Six days you work, and then there's this day of rest. There's this principle of a day of rest that the Lord has given us. We've called this a Sabbath. The scriptures have called it a Sabbath for a long time, a day of rest and enjoyment of the Lord, to come up to the house of the Lord and appear before God in Zion. You know, your whole routine of life is intended to train you and prepare you for entering into your final rest. But you don't think of this that way. Well, this is just the thing that we do, you know, the thing that we have to do. We have to go up to worship today. This is anticipating what's to come. But we forget that even now, there's something that God meant for us in this life to enjoy, and don't you see it? This is why this routine is so important. This is the Christian life. You'll notice the psalm, what it describes here is that we're learning to enjoy a lot right now. As we wait to enter our eternal rest. The blessings that are described here are wonderful. You'll notice the psalm says that as they travel through the valley of Baca. You know what the valley of Baca is? It's, as they understood, it was the valley of weeping. It was the valley of sorrows. It was south of Jerusalem. It was a valley. It was hot. It was where you never wanted to be. It was like walking through hell to them. That's life under the sun, isn't it? Sin has brought so much pain. Sin has brought so much sorrow. Sin has brought so much death. And now you understand the emphasis and the power of this psalm. It's as if he's saying, I go through this valley of Baca every week. You're going to head out into a new week, and you're going to face all kinds of challenges and distractions and pains and hardships. and every week you get to come back up to the house of the Lord, anticipating a time where you will finally enter your eternal rest, and there will be no more Valley of Baca. It'll be gone forever. The sense of this psalm is, I get to come up to the courts of the Lord, and I don't want to leave. I don't want to go back. I don't want to go back into that. I don't want to go back and taste the sorrow. I don't want to go back and feel the pain. I don't want to go back and feel the sickness and all that is going on under the sun. And don't you feel it? Don't you see it? Do you want this world? Yet we hold on. You can't run to Texas and get away from it. You can't run to Idaho. You can't run to Utah. It'll follow you, all these problems. I long for the experience, the good one, that I get when I come and gather with you. A people who love the Lord. A people who encourage one another. Where we receive the blessings of the Lord, the strength, the help, the word of God. Think of all that happens that you have taken for granted in life. What the sons of Korah begin to describe here, what I believe are the blessings that are, it is what he's saying to us, the blessings that flow from God's presence as we looked at this morning when we come. This is why we call it a means of grace. This is what sustains us. This is the upholding power in your life. And that's what verse 5 is saying to you. The blessedness is this. Blessed is the man whose strength is in you, whose heart is set on pilgrimage. They know they're going somewhere. They know this is not it. And as they pass through all of this sorrow, and as they pass through all of this pain, and all of this sickness, and all of this death. Notice what it says. They make it a spring. This is what God does in your life. This is what God is doing in your life. You have no idea how much strength he gives you from his word. It's there. He's constantly upholding you. And you don't even think about it. he revitalizes you, he strengthens you in what he spoke, and then he's told us that from this word, from his presence, real power rests upon us in our human weakness. This is what Paul understood in the thorn in the flesh. He said, when I asked the Lord to take away my sorrow, when I asked the Lord to take away my thorn, whatever it was, the Lord said, my grace is sufficient for you, Paul, for my power rests upon you in your weakness. For when you, right, you are strong when you are weak. This is what the Lord is saying. I am giving you constant strength. It's all over the Psalms. The Lord is the strength, and the Lord is my strength and my shield. In him my heart trusts, and I am helped. My heart exalts, and with my song I give thanks to him. The Lord is the strength of his people. He's the saving refuge of his anointed. All of this is in the context of worship, Psalm 29. May the Lord give strength to his people. May the Lord bless his people with peace. This is the blessing you receive from the Lord. Constant strength, strength upon strength. John will say, grace upon grace. more grace and more grace and more grace as you go to the heavenly Zion. And in the process, here's what happens. You start watering this desert. You make things green. It's a sort of missional emphasis of this psalm that's somewhat surprising. There's something most certainly enjoyed that is different and witnessed in the lives of those who have learned and been trained in this life to make the Lord their delight this way. Now listen to me on this. This is really important. There is something that is different about the life. Not only is it enjoyed by the one living this life, but there's something very different by the one who's been trained to enjoy the Lord this way, and it's noticed. In fact, the whole thing that he describes here at this point is a vivid contrast of how hard life is in this world and that that leads us to the sort of question can you imagine going through life and all of this valley of baka and all of these sorrows alone and then you start to think about and realize how much you've taken for granted his presence with you you can't even think about that you don't even realize what that would be like think of all of the people right now who are are filled in this community with everything but the lord no faith no community no hope no life and never once have they walked up into the house of the lord to worship him that's a tragic life, and that burdens us. The Lord fills you with life, and you become a light to those in darkness. You make the dry, barren desert green, is the imagery. You water the earth with hope. You are a blessing, as you were intended to be. This is exactly what the Lord told Abraham, remember, you will be a blessing to the nations, and you are his offspring. You are the people of Christ. You are the blessing to the nations. And this is what you're being trained in every time you worship, every time you enjoy him. This is what you're receiving from him. This is the end to which you were created, to glorify God and enjoy him forever, that you would be a blessing. And that's what this psalm is so helpful. You don't sometimes, we overthink thinking about witness and these things. It's right in front of you. You don't need to always look how to specially evangelize someone. Let them see you stream into worship. Let them see you put the Lord first. Let them see you leave your homes on Sunday mornings and evenings. They know what you're doing. They see it. and they're curious. Let them see the joy that you have in affliction. Let them see Christ in you, the hope of glory. Let them see who you are. This is what he's describing. This is the Christian life. Let them see the power of Christ rest upon you with hope in all of this sadness. See, it's offset. They go from strength to strength. strength to strength, until finally they enter before the face of God in glory. That's two marvelous, blessed blessings in this psalm, isn't it? You get to dwell with the Lord forever, and on this pilgrimage, you're receiving, and you go from strength to strength. You're not going from strength to weakness. You're going from strength to strength, grace to grace, all the way until you're there. And every week, you anticipate it. There's one more blessedness tonight that you can't miss here. You'll notice here that it says at the very end. It says, O Lord of hosts, verse 12, blessed is the one who trusts in you. So that's three blessings that the Lord decided to give you, sovereignly give you, that you didn't earn, that you didn't do something to get. The Lord gave you a blessedness to come and to dwell. The Lord gave you a blessedness to find strength through your whole life in him, and he says there's one, another great blessing that you've received that flows from the worship of the Lord, and it is a blessing to trust him. Such a beautiful part of the psalm, isn't it? You notice what it says here. O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer. Give ear, O God of Jacob, Selah. Behold our shield, O God. Look on the face of your anointed. What is one of the blessings that comes today from what you did in coming up to the house of the Lord and worshiping Him? Well, what did you do here today that you don't do very well in the week? You prayed. Did you hear what the psalmist asked? Would you hear my prayer, O Lord? You know, one of the greatest privileges, and this is sort of what lost in the church today, which is sad, is prayer. The congregational prayer of calling on the name of the Lord. And here's the beauty of what's being said to you tonight. When you pray, the King hears you. The King receives your prayers. Now, I have read enough of the scriptures to know all over the place it says that the Lord does not hear the prayers of the wicked. In fact, there are numerous times he turns his face right away. Think of what he's saying here. You have the special privilege to pray to the Lord, and he hears you. I had somebody, I don't quite know how to communicate this, but I had somebody say something to me the other day, and I suppose this is what people think of pastors, but they asked me to pray for them, and they said, Chris, do you know that God hears your prayers? whatever I prayed, they had really sensed that the Lord had answered. I stopped and thought, you know, that's exactly what I've experienced my whole life. This special privilege that when I call out to the Lord and talk to him, which is what prayers, boys and girls, this is what prayer is, he hears and he's helped. And you know what? That was almost shameful to me because I don't talk to him as much as I want when I have his ear I'm no different than you it's this sense here of the beauty coming from worship that when we pray together as a people he has specially turned that ear to us and hears us how many times have we prayed in this congregation for people and seen him answer it and seen him help us and seen him encourage this congregation. Think of it. Look where we sit now. He has heard your prayers because he's looked on the face of his anointed, that you are a blessed people because he loves his son. I always think of what the Heidelberg says, what belongs to prayer which pleases God and is heard by him. And it says at the very end of that, we must rest on this firm foundation that although we do not deserve it, God will certainly hear our prayer for the sake of Christ our Lord as he promised us in his word. Think of the beauty of that when you talk to your God. He hears the prayers of whom? Jacob. What a rebel he was. I often thought, why didn't he say the prayers of Abraham or the prayers of somebody better than that scoundrel because that's you and that's me. God loved and identified with Jacob and wanted us to understand he hears the prayers and has always heard the prayers even of Jacob, his people. So this is quite an encouragement tonight of this psalm, isn't it? It gives us this faith and desire to worship the Lord and enjoy him the way that we should, the kind of delight in us that flows from, that comes out of the worship of the Lord. Blessed is the one all over the Psalms that you choose, think of this, to bring near, to dwell in your courts. When you do that, the psalmist says, we are satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple. I think the only logical conclusion really is verse 10, isn't it? It's really the summary statement. It's really a summary statement of everything tonight. For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord is a sun and a shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. What a beautiful statement. I don't know that there's anywhere else in the scripture it says that the Lord is a son to us. Did you walk out today and stand under that sun? It's a pleasant experience in Southern California, isn't it? When the sun hits you, and the rays of the sun, it's cold or whatever, hits you, and that warmth lightens up your face, it's a wonderful experience. That's what the psalm is saying. Your whole life, His sun is shining down on you. He is his favor, his blessing, and he shields you. Why would you not want to worship him? Doesn't that lead us there? What's wrong with a people who would not want to worship a God like this? That is only the result of dead hearts. Because this is what he's doing for us. This is what he's giving us. A kingdom, life, strength, blessing from the Lord, and a place to dwell forever. That's the purpose you're created. I can't help but hear a rebuke to our whole generation who disregards the worship of God as some kind of chore. That it's some kind of hard duty. That it's some kind of vain thing that we do. And give more attention to a ball game and camping than to that. we are blessed to dwell, to receive strength from the Lord. He's a sun and shield to us. And through this life, from whatever you face, He is blessing you to trust Him. And this world has none of that. Just look at it. It's getting worse. They're hating Him more and more. You are blessed of the Lord. All the way through the Valley of Baca, You are his people. And you are called as his people to make it a spring. It's one of the reasons this is here now. So let's remember who we are going forward in 2020. Remember the three blessings that are upon you that you didn't ask for and you didn't earn. A blessedness to dwell before the Lord. A blessedness to receive strength upon strength the whole way. And a blessedness to trust him in life which will end in your absolute and total salvation. That is your God. Enjoy him as you were created to do. Amen. Heavenly Father, you are kind to us beyond what we could ever ask or imagine. Forgive us that we have treated you so lightly and such blessings so lightly when there's a lost world in front of us who has none of this. May we then in turn be a blessing as we are called to be. That whatever you put us through in this life, may we be encouraged that you love us, that you've given us a place and a home in glory. As we come up every week to worship anticipating this, would we receive strength upon strength from you as we head to Zion, even when we pass through the valley of tears. And may, oh Lord, all the more we are be blessed by you to trust you in everything in this life there's no place we'd rather be oh lord than to worship and receive your word for right there is real power resting upon us in our weakness thank you for the gospel thank you for salvation thank you for your son in jesus name we pray amen