I had anticipated to begin a series this morning with you, but I was burdened to preach Psalm 84, and after I had finished the work on the psalm, and I realized that the time that I've been with you, we've really done a sort of short series here on worship. I just wasn't bright enough to see that I was doing a series. Psalm 84 is a wonderful psalm to consider that this morning. I want to sort of close my series this morning with that psalm and then we'll begin something next week. Tonight, of course, we do start a series. So, Psalm 84. A psalm of the sons of Korah. And so we'll read the entirety of the psalm. 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. 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. 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. May the Lord bless the hearing of His Word. We live in a world of misery and sickness and death. And we often wonder in our day, In the times that we live especially, what is coming next? Do you ever feel like that? What in the world can come next? I mean, honestly, it is what they say, dog eat dog. Nobody seems to care about anyone else. Everyone is after their own gain today. Greed has overrun things. And we say with David as we prayed, help for the godly man ceases. Where is he anymore? Is there justice? Is there truth? And where do we find these things at all? It feels like the whole world around us is going to hell in a handbasket. And I look over the short time that I've existed under the sun, the thing and the way that things have progressed, at least as I see it and experience it, it's been awful. It's been awful. I mean, even 30 years ago, it seemed simpler, as they all say. And if you go back, simpler and simpler. Post 9-11, my kids are kind of introduced, I feel, to a violent world that I just either didn't see or didn't realize growing up. And here they are, and they're stuck in the middle of this, and I just don't know what they will face in the years to come. Morally, how much worse can it get? And I'm concerned. I'm concerned. I know this stuff happens to a world under the sway of the evil one, but it hurts to see all of the conflict even in the church. It hurts. It hurts to see struggling saints. It hurts to see all the fighting. And I struggle to see all the bitterness and all the dissensions and all the heresies and add to it all the pain that often in the life of the church that happens in the members and the things that go on. I grow weary of seeing parents lament over children. Children who are not walking with the Lord. And I saw that a lot up north. It was a sad phenomenon, by the way. Many in the church all their lives, their children not walking with the Lord. And I look at my children and I think, well, what will happen with my children? I train them up to walk in the Lord. What will be and what will happen? And I know all the work the Lord had to do with me. He's got a lot of work to do with them. He's got a lot of work to do with them. Look at the struggle. Look at the pain. The older I get, the more I see these things are a reality. And the thing that I want is a pain-free life. The thing I'm sort of searching for is a life without struggle. And I'm desperately trying to hold on to that. I'm desperately trying to create that. I'm good at trying to create that. But no matter what really I try to do, there's no way of avoiding the pain of it all when the tragedy strikes, right? I mean, at some point, if I've got it good now, I know that could change tomorrow. And it's going to change tomorrow. It's for all of us. You ever thought ahead to that? You're comfortable today and you're sitting and listening to a sermon today and life's going well and you're about your life and you're making money and things are going well. But have you thought about the day when it's not going well? Have you thought about the day when tragedy strikes or when it really gets hard? Then what? What next? Psalm 84 will help us to think a little bit about that. Psalm 84 is an amazing psalm. For me, one of the most important psalms. I love this psalm. It's had an impact upon me like no other. I'd heard it read before, but I never really understood what it was telling me. And when I finally understood and the light went on about this psalm, it became my favorite. And that's the beauty, I guess, of being a new pastor. You can kind of preach your favorites up front. Spurgeon called it one of the sweetest psalms of peace. And yes, it is. What makes it so beautiful is how simple this psalm is. How profoundly simple and peaceful it is. Its message is really clear. If you read it carefully, it's a very clear message to us. The psalm is about enjoying God, knowing God, enjoying Him. It shows us and it sets before us this morning what a fruitful life really looks like, a life that is blessed of God. Don't you want to know that? Don't you want to see that? Don't you want to understand that? Of course you do. It's an intense expression of the psalmist's heart for the living God. And what he's saying to us this morning is that because he has learned to value that which is most important in this life, because he has found the pearl of great price, he can handle. He has perspective in the valley of Baca. We'll come back to that. He is saying to us this morning, he's experienced it all. He's been through the fight. He's been through the struggle. He knows the sorrows. He's lived the sorrows. And he expresses to us, where he found the answer. And we can learn so much from this. I hope that in the short time when we're done here, you say Psalm 84 is now one of my favorites. It's a psalm that teaches us about the blessing of God's presence in the wilderness in which we live. And that God gives wisdom for us to see this. God calls for us to see this, to show us and teach us about the really blessed life. What you have at the beginning of the psalm is a description of his deepest longing. Look at verse 1. How lovely is your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, even faints, for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. What's he describing? There's two ways of looking at the psalm. There's two ways of looking at it. This psalm is about worship. This psalm is about enjoying God in worship. I mean, that's at least initially clear. Some think that these sons of Korah are describing an inability to come and to worship the Lord, and they're looking back over that, and they're saying, we had the opportunity before, but now our circumstance of life has taken that away, and we're looking back so fondly on that time that we long for. We wish we still had. That's one way of looking at the psalm. My soul faints just to think about the days when I was able to come to worship. Calvin takes that position. That for some period in the life of the psalmist, he was barred from the sanctuary. Now, there are psalms that describe that. Psalm 42 describes that. Remember, as the deer pants for the water brook, so pants my soul for the living God. When do I get to come and appear before God? And then he goes on to describe something that's terribly happened to him where he is taken off in the hills of Hermon and he's far away from Jerusalem and he can't come to the place of God's worship and he longs for it. What a powerful thought that is, isn't it? I would never want to experience that. In this country, we have a lot of freedom today to come and to worship. But I often think to myself, do I really appreciate that? Do I really understand that? If that were taken away from me, which surely could happen and is happening all around this world, if the ability to come and worship were taken away from me, what would it do to me? How would it affect me? Would I have a sort of remorseful moment of how carelessly I treated the Lord and how little I gave to Him and how much I never really valued worship until it was gone. You hear people say that. When it's gone, then. Then I realized how special it was. That's a good way to think about the psalm. I'm not convinced that's the right way to look at the psalm. I believe the great John Calvin was wrong. I believe what makes Psalm 84 so profound is he's describing the complete freedom and ability to come to the Lord's house and he has found it so satisfying, so fulfilling in that freedom. In his ability to come. And that has become the treasure of his life. That's become the place of the real pearl of great comfort. Of the pearl of great price. That six days when he's out in a hard week, he's able to look and say how I long to taste every day what I'm experiencing on the Sabbath in the Lord's house. That's a whole different kind of scenario, by the way. That's a whole different kind of scenario. How lovely is your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts. That has so much meaning for us. If I have time, I'd like to preach the whole Bible. But surely Exodus. And the tabernacle was an amazing structure. The word tabernacle here, it means dwelling place. And I'm sure in the psalmist's mind is the thought of the tabernacle that went up in the wilderness. And this was the place, remember, that God had decided to come down to Israel and to meet with His people. And there you had a series of courts. and it was a great description in Exodus of all of these courts and the altars and the bronze lava and the tent doors and the holy place and the candlestick and the table and then the most holy place where the throne symbolically was where God was said to have dwelt between the cherubim. And God's people would gather in the Old Testament. They would come often to the tent door of meeting and they would have worship services. It was a glorious moment in Israel's history when they would do this. We sing the song, God Himself is with us. God Himself was with them. He had come down to them. I love, says the psalmist, to come to where you have come down to meet us. I love that. I long for it. I thirst for it. Notice how intimate, how beautiful, how poetic this is. Deep within my soul, I faint just to be able to come. I want to be there. If we're honest today, did we have that attitude coming this morning? Were we excited to come to the Lord's house? How did we approach coming to the Lord's house? Sunday comes. We sleep in a little bit. throw on our clothes. It's a big rush, especially if you're a family with children. I know. Just to get here, everything seems to go wrong. What is worship to us? What do we think worship is? We often think that the Old Testament, when we look back at the Old Testament, that it was full of all of these laws and requirements and sacrifices. And I remember offhanded statements along the way of people who would say, boy, I'm so glad I live in the New Testament because that must have been just joyless back then. All of these sacrifices and rules and laws. And as I read the psalm, I hear the rebuke of that mentality. I hear the rebuke of that mentality. I hear the psalmist saying, correcting the notion that the worship of God is some kind of chore or some kind of hard demand that God puts on the life of His people. That's not what it was. He's describing for us this morning, He's describing that He has found that coming to the Lord's house was exactly the opposite. How lovely. There's a beauty about this that He's describing. And it wasn't because so much the temple. It wasn't because so much the building. He says here very clearly, My heart cries out for the living God. The worship of You, O Lord, is lovely. It thrills my soul. This is my passion in life. I've found that this is the thing that means the most in life is the ability to come before You and to be in Your present. It's the most satisfying thing I've ever done with my life. You hear it? It's the most satisfying thing I've ever done with my life. This isn't the only place this is emphasized, by the way. Psalm 27 is also another psalm. And most of you love Psalm 27, I'm sure. It's a beautiful psalm, but it says right in the middle of that psalm, one thing that I've desired of the Lord, that will I seek after. One thing, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple. You see what's being described? That ultimately, this was the calm from the storm. This was the most enjoyable, peaceful, blessed thing He could do. And so He describes this experience as that of feigning for the courts. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. He gets to come, and we'll talk about what's really happening here in a second, but he gets to come in response to what's happening and express himself to say thank you to his Lord and to with his mouth sing praises to his God. If there's anything that needs to be reformed today, it's our understanding of worship. And I mean understanding of what it is. We're so into the battles, And these have been going for years of contemporary and traditional. And have we really listened in that whole discussion to the meaning of worship? The meaning of worship. For many people today, they love to quote Jesus and they love to say that we no longer worship on this mountain or on that mountain, but in spirit and in truth. And that has become for people a sort of license to say that we no longer need the church and we no longer need to come and worship. It's been the sort of common excuse that we get. And we hear that since the church is not a building, amen, it's a people, I'm the church. And this thought that has prevailed in our day in Christianity has a sound of wisdom. It has a form of godliness, I suppose, but it leads to something very dangerous. Very dangerous. There's a reason God gave a command in the New Testament. We know the command. There's a reason God gave the command that we should not neglect the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some. We know that that is a command. We live in that time. We live in that time. But I suggest this morning that people are pining away spiritually because of this great excuse not to come. What the psalmist is describing, he's not talking about places of stone or wood. He's ultimately here speaking of the blessings that come from the presence of the Lord. The blessings that flow from where the Lord is and where the Lord has chosen to be. There was an understanding that when God's people gathered in the Old Testament for worship on the Sabbath, there was something that was happening that you could not get anywhere else. And that's such an important point this morning. there was something happening that you could not get anywhere else. And that's what the psalmist here is describing. You'll notice in verse 2 that his flesh is crying out for God here because God had come and chosen to dwell. That's where the tabernacle dwelling is in that place. And you know, that's when the church gathers today what is happening. God Himself is with us. You know, we sung out a minute ago Psalm 92. And that is the only, notice in the description there before, that's the only psalm where it says this is a song for the Sabbath. And I've often thought that's an amazing thing that the Lord would do that. Why did He want that communicated to us? There's something about that psalm, if you listen to it, of what it's also saying to us. They would sing when they came into the Lord's house. It's a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto Your name, O Most High. To show forth Your loving kindness in the morning and Your faithfulness every night. In the song for the Sabbath, they would come in the morning and they would come at night. I wonder, have we understood that? We were one of the last churches in Linden that had an evening service. Everyone dropped it. And one of the things I never wanted to do from the pulpit is to pound the pulpit and say, you need to be here Sunday nights. I struggled with that. I never did that. I had a problem a little bit with that. I didn't want to pound because I didn't want to create a joyless pride in what we were doing. And I was so thankful for the way it was done at the installation service. Forcing worship seems to be one of the most unnatural things to do, doesn't it? In light of this psalm. Does the Lord command us to worship? Absolutely. But the Lord always wanted from His people us to call it a what? A delight. The Lord always wanted from you to call this the great delight of your life. And I was afraid if I ever pounded that people would become very self-righteous, the ones who were there, and then take the CD and hand it to those who weren't there. You think we've missed something today? You think we're struggling today for a reason? I'm going to talk about this a little bit tonight. Why did the Lord want us to delight in this? There's a few reasons. But in light of this psalm, there is a power. There is a power given to us that we can't find elsewhere. god set this up this morning and you know we would have never dreamed this up yeah i could have never dreamed it up i wouldn't be here you know uh but he set this up he called this for you to come and to remove all distraction to give you what we call the means of grace to feed your souls to strengthen you to help you and what does he do for you why did god's people love to gather and come to His house for worship. From the beginning, right out of the fall, in Genesis we read a little statement that men began to call on the name of the Lord. They gathered together, symbolic of coming out of the world, and they called. Why? Because they had a need. And now you see how this is tying in to last Sunday with John 13. Listen to this psalm. One thing I've asked that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. Psalm 27. James Boyce once said, there is something to be experienced of God in church that is not quite so easily experienced elsewhere. Otherwise, why have church? If only instruction is what we need, get it by a tape or a book. If it's only fellowship, have a home gathering. and a study, there is something to be said, I love this statement, for the sheer physical singing and the sitting in pews and the looking at the pulpit and the gazing upon the Word of God and to hear it expounded and to taste the sacrament in that atmosphere that God has set apart for you that is spiritually beneficial. This is where Gospel is announced. This is where Christ is heralded. This is where He has set before you that He has died for all of our sins, that He has risen from the dead, raised for our justification that you and your journeys might be assured of His love. You need that? Now this is where the psalm is overwhelming to ponder because I want you to see what He does at this moment. Look at verse 3. Even the sparrow has found a home and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young. Even your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those, he says, who dwell in your house. They will still be praising you. I'm imagining here for a minute that during the work week, the psalmist is looking up to the tabernacle and a bird has the ability to fly right up there and it's made a nest right on the corner of the tabernacle. Now I'm speculating a little bit but it's a good speculation. He's made a nest right at the corner of the tabernacle and the psalmist is looking at that and he's thinking, wow, that little bird gets to fly up there right up to the Lord. He gets to come. And he's understanding a little bit through that imagery of what's happening in worship where she may lay her young. You bring your children and we get to come into the house of the Lord and we praise Him. You know sparrows are almost worthless birds. Jesus talked about sparrows, didn't He? I wonder if He had Psalm 84 in mind when He says not even one falls to the ground apart from His will. He feeds them. They're worthless birds. The swallow is a restless bird. Restless, restless, restless. Those things hit you when you're playing golf like you wouldn't believe. You know who wrote this psalm? Under the inspiration of the Spirit. The sons of Korah. You know who they were? They were doorkeepers in the Lord's house. They had the most insignificant role in the kingdom. They were not the great ones among the Levites. and they could rightly be called the janitors of the Lord's house and the psalmist is thinking here he's thinking I'm overwhelmed to think and to ponder for a minute that in the eyes of my God He gives a place to the sparrows He gives a place to the swallows that He would consider the janitors in the world I don't know how much this overwhelms you but here's the heart of it God considers the nothings of this world God considers the weak of this world God takes delight in the nobodies of this world and what overwhelmed him about this God and we see it here in the simple childlike faith from a janitor, the sons of Korah these nobodies were moved to think that God loved them and that God would care that they come in His presence while the great men of the world, the kings, the mighty men, the commanders, the rich men are out living it up in the world. You see, this is the kind of heart the Lord is after. He doesn't need our worship, beloved. He doesn't need you here today. But you need to be here. And when we create an environment where we feel forced to come, I've never understood how that fits Psalm 110. There'll be willing servants in the day of His power. When we create that kind of environment, What you create is a whole bunch of people who draw near with the mouth, but the heart is far from Him. We don't want that. We never want that. We don't want that in the URC churches in general. That would be awful. To make it so forced and so compelled that that is what we actually ended up doing in worship. That's what we've done. Create that kind of burdensome yoke of bondage to think that that's what worship is. God says, here's where I bless. Here's where I give blessing. In fact, the whole thing that He describes at this point in vivid contrast is how hard this world is. And that's the beginning of the sermon this morning. Can you imagine facing these sorrows alone? Every pastor will tell you, you go into hospitals and you minister to God's people, but next door, you'll see people dying. And I can think of a whole bunch of them who have absolutely no hope approaching their death. Right now, Darcy's uncle is in Canada and he's dying. And we have been telling him a lot about the Lord for a long time, pleading with him to come and to hear the Word and believe. And he's one of the wealthiest men we know. He's proud. He will not listen. And as he's approaching his death, I see a strong, grown man weeping. He has absolutely no hope coming to his death. And then comes hell. You see the contrast? The Lord says, I've got something for you. It describes what happens to someone who's truly been satisfied by Christ. He describes a life of blessing. Blessed is the man whose strength is in you, whose heart is set on pilgrimage. Verse 5, notice that. Whose heart is set and know where they're going. As they pass through the valley of Baca, they make it a spring. The rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength. Don't you love that? Each one appears before God in Zion. So do you get that? The sons of Korah would say, we really want to be in your house worshiping you, but we're not home yet. We know that we're on a pilgrimage. We're going somewhere. We're passing through the valley of Baca. What's that? It's the valley of tears. It was a hot valley south of Jerusalem and it brings to mind Psalm 23, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, sin has brought pain, sin has brought sorrow. And you understand now the point of the psalm. He's saying, I get to go in the midst of this valley. I get to go up to the house of the Lord and I get to receive spiritual satisfaction and blessing and I get to delight myself in the Lord and there I taste a power and grace like I've never known. I don't want to leave it. I don't want to go back into the world during the week. At times, the burdens of it are unbearable. I see things. I feel things. I feel like giving up. I feel depressed at times. But when I get to come to worship, what the Lord does for me is give strength. Look at verse 5. Blessed is the man whose strength is in you. Whose heart is set on pilgrimage. This is what God has done in the life of His people. There's something about them that makes them as they go through the dry, barren wilderness a water pool. That's what you are. They go from strength to strength. You notice God describes that? You go from strength to strength to strength until finally you appear before God in Zion. New Testament will go a little further and say we've received grace for grace, glory to glory. This is the path of the believer heaping upon us this. This is what God does for you. Now this is the life. This is the fulfilled life. You say, well, how do I receive that kind of life if I haven't really known it and appreciated it? Did you notice verse 8? Did you catch verse 8? O Lord of hosts, hear my prayer. Give ear, O God of Jacob. God of rebels, by the way. O God, behold our shield and look upon the face of Your anointed. Who is that? Who is the Messiah? Who is God's anointed? You know who's sitting at the right hand? it's His Messiah. It's Jesus Christ, isn't it? And at that right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16. Why? Give us this kind of faith, O Lord, to trust You and enjoy You because at Your right hand, there, look upon the face of that one. Why would He say that? Because it was the Lord Jesus Christ who came here for us and had no place to lay His head. He had no home. He went through the valley of tears and He wept. And He came into this wilderness. He came into this place of curse. And what did He do? He made it a spring, didn't He? He watered it. He saved. And He's saying, all of these blessings come to you this morning because one has come and one's walked in this valley for you and died for you and loves you and when we pray to Him the Father looks upon His Son and the blessings flow right to us as we come to Him and worship and experience and receive that grace. My prayer is give me that life of faith, O Lord. Is that your prayer? Give me that life. Look upon Him and give me that life four and what a way to go forward a day in your courts is better than a thousand I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness young people it's not better out there don't buy the lie it's not better it's a tent of wickedness don't go there why would you go there when the Lord is saying when you can come here He'll give you grace and glory and He'll shield your life He'll cover your life He'll protect you and hold you. Blessed is the man who trusts in you. He'll still be praising the Lord. I'd rather be a janitor in the Lord's house than to dwell out there. I can't help but hear in closing this morning a rebuke to our generation. Isn't it sad that the Old Testament psalmist would describe this, and yet today we're still struggling to find the pearl? We're still struggling to find meaning and joy and life. He is saying here, rebuking this generation that regards the worship of God as some kind of chore, a hard duty, of people who would readily give themselves to a ball game rather than come and enjoy the Lord. Popcorn's not better. It's not. The Lord has His food for you. And when his house is lightly esteemed, it's no wonder you're going to go through life. In what kind of way do you think you're going to go through life? You're going to be a miserable person. You're going to have no perspective through life. You're going to have no joy. When the hard time hits, you think you're going to know and understand? This is why he's saying, enjoy this. Learn Christ. Know Him. And He'll bless that. How can I have this life? I love what the other psalmist says. Blessed is the one you choose to bring near, To dwell in your courts. When you do that, we shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house and the holiness of your temple. And you see, now you can understand the end of the psalm. The Lord God is a sun and a shield. He will give grace and glory. I need that. You need that. And He will withhold. Look at this promise of the psalm. He will withhold no good thing from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts You. We are so blessed this morning. In the valley of Baca, the Lord has looked upon the face of His anointed and blessed us. We will still be praising. Beloved, that is a life worth living. Amen? Let's pray. O Lord our God, we are so grateful for the psalm that You've given to us this morning. That You've nourished us with words of grace. That You have fed us with the true food. That You've shown us our Savior. And that You give strength in the valley of tears. Some of our brothers and sisters are in tears right now. Some of them are hurting. Strengthen them all the way to Zion. And Lord, renew our whole understanding of worship that as we get to come in the morning and at night, the privilege to come and to feed upon Your almighty and powerful Word. Thank You, and our prayer is, O God of Jacob, look on the face of Your anointed and bless Your people. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.