SPEAKER_00 0:00

Scripture this morning is Psalms 84. 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 the joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her yawn. At your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise. Selah. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, and whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the valley to 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 Lod God of Jacob. Selah. 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 son and shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. Oh Lord of God host, blessed is the one who trusts in you.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Sometimes when I'm driving, my mind will wander. I remember driving and I saw a billboard, and it's not where it was normally, it was way out of the field. And it was a beautiful billboard. There was an 18-hole painted there. And it was advertised in a golf resort, and it said, look where you could be now. You are not watching the road. They didn't want a casualty, they wanted a visitor. I was doing a woodworking project this week, and there was a little voice that kept going in my head as I used multiple saws. And the voice said, Stay focused, the blade will cut your finger. Well, I'm reminded of a woodworking friend who basically has multiple missing fingers because he did not stay focused. You know, a tragic uh event uh based on focus, losing focus was Eastern Airline years ago from New York City to Miami and crashed in the Everglades. Horrible. What happened is instead of one of the crew members being focused on this blinking light that had to do with the landing gear that was malfunctioning, and one of them flying the plane, all three crew members were focused on the blinking light, did not realize that the plane came off autopilot when they hit an air bump, and unfortunately, they crashed into the Everglades. And that costly era, uh there were 101 lives that perished, including the passengers and crew, because they lost their focus. Do you ever lose your focus? Jeremiah 29, 11. Have y'all seen the scripture over here? Well, I guess I lost my focus there for a minute. Or maybe I need to stay laser focused. Um Pastor Garrett, someone over here may need you, but I'm gonna stay laser focused on this. Those are the two far extremes. But we're in church, okay? So let's be honest with one another. Have we lost our focus? Have you ever lost your focus? It's easy to take our eyes off the prize, it's easy to get distracted. But the message of this hour is how God is faithful to refocus us. So, Pastor Garrett, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here. It is an honor to bring God's word this morning. Our psalm today was likely written to describe the annual pilgrimage to the temple. And in this psalm, we'll see uh uplifting sentiment and really beautiful imagery, and we'll see the moving aspirations we find to show that God is eager to refocus us on Himself. Charles Spurgeon was a famous mid-1800 English Baptist preacher and biblical scholar who at the time where he lived and served opposed much of the liberal theology of his day. And he said that Psalm 84 was entitled to be called the Pearl of Psalms. If the 23rd Psalm to be the most popular, the 13rd the most joyful, the 119th, the most deeply experiential, the 51st the most plentive, then one of the most sweet psalms of the Prince of Peace would be Psalm 84. There are 12 different attributes and activities of God that we find within this chapter, where God is the covenant-keeping Lord, the commander of heavenly armies, the living God, my God and only God, the faithful God, the source of light in life, the shield of protection and provision, showering people with grace, surrounding people with glory, and showing goodness to people. So as we talk about how God refocuses us, let's turn our focus to this Psalm, Psalm 84. A rich psalm that's packed with spiritual truth for us this morning. So the first point in verses 1 and 2 that we'll be looking at if you're following along with your God is by teaching us to prefer Him. 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. How lovely is your dwelling place. I've been all over the world and seen beautiful cathedrals and churches with all their ornate additions. But the absence of the Lord in those places just make it a beautiful building and not a house of God. Lovely here describes the spiritual beauty that God's presence brings to us. In our trips and travels in the military, living in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Korea, we had a lot of interaction with the British and Korean children. And boy, they love our desserts. They really do, because it's something they can't easily get. And so they love something different. And we've seen that from the World Cup also. But the British children would often say that the dessert was lovely as a special compliment. This is how we describe the spiritual beauty that God's present brings. Lovely. You know, the heart, our heart, was created for God's dwelling place. Every earthly home points beyond itself to a greater home Christ has secured for you and I. Where God's people will dwell with him forever. And every restless longing in our bones will finally be satisfied. That's hard to imagine, isn't it? Well, the older I get with the, you know, it's the creaks and the cracks, it's the snap, crackle, pop, it's uh it's the strain. You stand up and you say, ooh, where did that come from? When you have that pull muscle. Some of you are nodding, you you understand. Nevertheless, one day that will all be satisfied, and what a glorious day that will be. Wherever God's people gather to worship, that becomes lovely. This is lovely this morning because God is with us. Spurgeon says that he does not tell us how lovely they are because he could not. His expressions show us that his feelings were inexpressible. You know, in verse 2, it talks about our soul longing. The psalm is written by the worship leaders who expressed a longing for the presence of God. It would be like Jackson, Stephen, and Riley getting together and writing a worship song expressing the longing for the presence of God. That's what the psalmist together they did. It loves God's dwelling place so much that he even feints to be there. He's talking about the temple in a language of love poetry. The appetite from God here is insatiable, and he wants more and more and more of it. It's almost as though it's a craving. Have you ever craved something? We've lived overseas multiple times, and there are certain things you crave. Like some good, fresh squeezed orange juice. Being from Georgia, I'm always looking for some good peaches. This is the season of peaches. That craving, that desire, that's really what we're really talking about here. We must develop a hunger for worship. Have you ever heard that the best seasoning for food is hunger? It doesn't matter how mediocre the dish is, if you're hungry, it tastes really good. Well, that makes everything more satisfying is when you're hungry. So the encouragement here is for us to come to church hungry. Now make sure you do not fill up on the world's junk food before you come. Make sure that you come hungry, ready to hear from the Lord. One of the old Puritan writers has well observed that the desires of the heart are the best proofs of salvation. If a man wishes to know whether or not he is really a child of God, he can soon find out by putting his finger on the pulse of his desires. What are our desires? For we cannot counterfeit our longings. We can't fake it. We can't fake the things we say. Yeah, we can. We can fake that. We can make it sound the way we want it to sound. We can easily pick up a smattering of language from the church language lectionary. And from that we can say all of the right things. We can do all of the right things. But at the heart of the matter, a good action can be done out of discipline and duty, but the attitude, the heart, can never be masked to a point of faking it. It is the heart that brings the joy to the moment. We can't counterfeit. This ultimately has to do with longing for the person rather than a place. That's why those great big churches and cathedrals, as beautiful as they were, when they were empty, you did not feel the presence. There were certain places you would feel the presence of God. That's where you wanted to be. Because the Lord is more than a person. It is our all. It is what we desire. Because a place does not make it. Yes. In verse 2, it talks about feigning for the courts of the Lord. Have you ever fainted? It's not a pleasant experience. I fainted once. I was very fortunate to have a chaplain, a former EMT, who watched me pull a muscle, and he began to describe exactly what was happening to me. I broke out in a cold sweat. All of a sudden, I started getting tunnel vision. I was sitting down. He said, Okay, I have my jacket. I folded it over. Just go ahead and lean on over on my lap and I will be here with you. No matter what I did, there was no way that I could not faint. It was just, it was something that was going to happen. Horrible situation. Nevertheless, that feigning, being weak and dizzy and losing that consciousness for insufficient oxygen to the brain, it's not pleasant, but not every longing is so great to make a feigning. It's a deep feeling. So it's hard to imagine, but not every love is so great to make a longing. The psalmist's appreciation for God's house wasn't simply because it was beautiful. His soul longed for God's house and even faints when denied the privilege of meeting with God amongst his people. I think that's the point. He longed so much to be in fellowship with God in his house that if he couldn't do it, he would just faint. He would just lose consciousness. That was that love and that desire. And this is the guy who's always there. It's not like he comes once in a while. This is a regular experience. He's talking about the temple, the language of love poetry showing the appetite that he has for God here is insatiable. Goes on, my heart and flesh sing joy. The psalmist is consumed with his happy but intense desire to worship God in the temple. There's no reserve here. His prayer is joyfully boisterous. Don't exclude joy from your other emotions. Joy can still be connected to longing and even grief. There can still be joy within that. To the living God. This is a reminder that God is living in the sense that his presence is active among us, his people. God is alive and well. Amen? Okay. God is actual existence and is opposite of the dead and false God of the Ivals. You know, throughout history, throughout as we read the biblical history, history, kings and rulers have acknowledged the unknown God or the God of a leader or prophet. And God has always showed up the living God. Go back and look. Noah, Moses, Joshua, David, Elijah, Peter, Paul, just to name a few, all had those same experiences of the kings and rulers not understanding. But they knew the living God that was part of their life. When we read a psalm like this, it's helpful to ask ourselves if the desires of our soul compare with the desires that we have. Or another way to look at it is, and it's often embarrassing, to have a spiritual health checkup to compare our zeal with God's zeal. For God to the passion of the psalmist here. When we think about it, we have an awesome, awesome God who cares for us. Point number two, by providing all we need in verses five through seven. 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 the place of springs. The early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength. Everyone appears before God in Zion. In verse 5, Blessed are those whose strength is in you. He does not rely on self or the world for strength. I think let me say that again, and I think I'm supposed to stomp just so we remember this. He, we do not rely on self or the world for strength. Because we will fail and the world will fail us. But we find it in the Lord. God is our strength. His true strength and treasure in the world to come. In 1 Samuel 36, when the Amalekites had raided and kidnapped the women and children from David's army's camp, David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him. Each one was bitter in spirit because of their sons and daughters that had been taken. But David found strength in the Lord. David in that moment recognized that's where his strength was. That's a reminder to us. No matter what valley or what mountain we're on, the Lord is with us. Our strength is from the Lord. It goes on in verse 5, in whose hearts are the highways to Zion. So during this time, the majority of the Israelites were scattered throughout the country in small villages and family farms. The psalmist remembers when he speaks in verse five about the setting their hearts on pilgrimage. This strength and this heart of a pilgrim are displayed by the love for the house of God. There he meets with God along with the other pilgrims, and they gave strength in God together as they meet. That strength to strength in fellowship with God and one another. In verse 6, it talks about the valley of Baca. So there's the highways to Zion, the mountaintops, and then there's the valleys. And Bachah can be translated as weeping or balsam tree, and the valley was an arid place on the way to Jerusalem. And the sense of the meaning of the valley of Baca is really uncertain, but uh common commentators are more unified in suggesting that Baca speaks of tears and weeping or of a uh drought and dryness, thoughts and difficulty. So this unusual name is either an unknown place or a figurative place representing the state of the soul, but most feel that the latter is probably correct, that Baca refers to the balsam trees instead of an arid place which grows in the air places. But the word really means a place of weeping. We all know there's no way to go to a mountaintop without going through a valley. And if you're going through a valley, it's just a path toward the presence of God in our lives. This valley symbolizes dry and difficult days. Have you ever had a spell of dry and difficult days? Where, wow, how can I make it another day? It's very challenging. And in the middle of the valley, God sustained them with hope of his presence. Tears of sadness become springs of joy when the pilgrims look to the presence of God. They make it a place of springs. So the pilgrims are made able to go to the valley of weeping and turn it to a place of springs. God can turn the sorrow into joy, that place of hardness into a place that is refreshing. Rather than weary travelers, the journey exhilarates and strengthens them. Have you ever hiked a mountain? My daughter Kara, my son Ryan, and I hiked to the top of Pike's Peak. That's over 14,000 feet tall. And I remember we carried 15 bottles of water. We bought more water halfway up the trail at Bar Camp, and we bought more water at the top because the streams there had bacteria and you couldn't drink them unless you were able to filter it out. Imagine we're going to hike through the mountains and we're going to only carry one bottle of water. The first thing in my mind is we're not going to make it far because we're going to need more water. But just imagine you're you're constantly worried about running out, and the but the trail is lined with fresh springs every few miles. Every few miles you're going to be refreshed and hydrated. That is the way God lays the plan for us. It is not trying to carry all the water with you, but it's carrying what you need, and God provides what you need along the way. How special is that. As we press forward in our goal of heaven, we will, we have, pass through a lot of autumn and fall brown leaves and a lot of icy winters and cold slashing rains, but we're not just hardened by those things. We rise above them because of God's strength to strength to strength in our life. On a normal journey, especially a difficult one, the usual pattern, I remember when we hiked a Pike's Peak, is you start out with strength, but then you get to weakness or fatigue. In this life that we live, in this journey that we're on, because God loves us and is there to supply our needs, God supplies us strength to strength to strength, which I'm thankful for. One of the beautiful truths in this verse is that God's people do not move from strength to weakness. You know, the strength and weaknesses are a real thing. If you had a bunch of children and adults at your house either 4th of July or maybe Thanksgiving or Christmas, you start out with a lot of excitement. And you start out how wonderful it is, but then somewhere along the way, you look at your spouse and say, What were we thinking? Why did we do this? And it quickly goes from strength to weakness. Nevertheless, God is there, continuing us, supplies fresh strength for each stage of the journey in our life, and it refocuses us on the grace of the Lord in our lives. At age 17, Johnny Erickson Tata dove a shallow pool of water and she broke her neck, became quadruple, and the fur and now what an amazing uh testimony she has been for so many years. Nevertheless, the first year after her accident, she confessed that she prayed every day that she would die. Depression, chronic pain, dependence on others made the day feel impossible. So many people just assume that she grew into strength and became strong. But she said the opposite. Every day she prayed that the Lord was the only one that was going to get her out of the depression she was in to move forward. She waked up many mornings not wanting to face today before the caregivers, said, Jesus, if I don't get your strength today, I won't make it. Church family? That's the truth for every one of us. If our prayer every morning is, Jesus, if you do not, if I don't get your strength today, I'm not going to make it. That is the heart of the Christian journey. She went on to say that there wasn't this huge reservoir, but instead it was day to day, moment to moment, that the Lord supplied the strength she needed to make it through. The farther we travel, instead of being faint and weary, we should grow stronger and stronger in the Lord. Number three, by offering the joy of serving him, verse 10, for a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. The psalmist really began with love and longing for the house of the Lord. And that's really what we've heard about this morning. And how he returns to the thought. Time spent in God's house was better and more valuable than if it was spent everywhere. The Lord lives in a different dimension. It's eternal. So there's not a past or a future, it's always the infinite present. I know it's hard for us to even think that way. But he lives in the eternal present, not the past. So for a day in the court is better than a thousand elsewhere. So many people have wondered what the thousand means, that analogy. But think of it this way: a moment with the Lord is better than eternity without him. I would rather spend a moment with the Lord than eternity without him. Deuteronomy 1.11 says, May the Lord, the God of your fathers, increase you a thousand times and bless you as he has promised. Some of you may have moved from the snowy north. You might better say it this way that someday in sunny Florida is better than a thousand in icy Wisconsin or Michigan. That's another way to look at it. One day, just one day in the presence of God is worth all of the hills and valleys to get there. A day of fellowship with Him. I think that is the relationship that the Lord desires of us, and we should desire of Him. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord. One thing this verse shows that it's a blessing to be involved in the work of God. You know, the doorkeepers, they're not bored. And that's not the ushers at the door. They're the ones on the outside. They open and close the doors. They're doing protection. It is not the glamorous work. And that is what our heart and desire should be. A doorkeeper with Christ is far greater riches than a king without him. So James Montgomery Boyce refers to Psalm 84 as the Psalm of the Janitors. He means to stay humble. A humble servant in the temple is better than being an exalted sovereign one on a throne surrounded by the wicked. It's better than to dwell in the house of wickedness. We remember the empty and passing pleasures of the life of wickedness. Living a luxurious life in fancy tents of wickedness means nothing. But it's instead to humbly serve in God's house. Point number four in verse 11 by showing us his relentless goodness. For the Lord is a sun and shield, the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he behold from those who walk uprightly. For the Lord God is Son, is a Son. You know, it's the only place that God has referenced the sun because pagan worship worship the sun and great emphasis on that. Nevertheless, the psalmist looked up to the light and the life that the sun brings. And this is the way he describes being in the presence of God, who shines brightly on his people and shines on us and brightly on our days. The goodness and blessings that come from the Lord and how great that is. And is our shield, is our the son of blessing and our defensive shield as God's provision and protection. And the Lord bestows favor and honor, and no good thing does he withhold. What does the text say? I will force all my children to enjoy every good thing. No, no good thing will he withhold, because there's a thousand mercies that we do that he would not enjoy. He would not spare his own son. He who did not spare his own son, but gave him for us all. The Lord gave him for us that we might live. Point number five. By giving us reasons to trust him. And this is really where the heart of the message comes together. This verse summarizes the psalm. There are two reasons given in this verse that we should trust the Lord. The first reason has to do with God. He is Almighty. He is Almighty. The Almighty One. And the second reason is God blesses those who trust Him. God is the Almighty One with His heavenly army. He brings all of the omnipotent power on heaven and earth together with his angels. And he blesses those who trust him, those who place their trust in him and that relationship. Trust comes from being able to throw your weight down on it. To lie down, to throw your weight. You trust that you can sit in the chair. We trust that God is going to provide for us. This psalm speaks to our heart in many ways, but the most profound way is how we come together. If we go back to that beginning video, we think about those runners, those athletes, bless their hearts. Think about that billboard sign, keep your eyes on the road. My woodworking fin with the missing fingers or the tragic airline crash. They were all completely out of focus. So how has your focus been? Are you ready for God to refocus you today? Maybe you're here today and you've not accepted Christ as your Savior, and we're so glad that you are here, that you chose to be with us in fellowship, and we welcome you to join and learn more. Maybe someone today desires to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. You realize that you have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. You understand that Jesus died on the cross for your sin and was resurrected again the third day so that you can be saved. You want to confess that Jesus is your Lord and Savior today. We'd love to talk to you about the decision. Maybe your desire to publicly confess your faith and be baptized. We'd love to talk to you about your decision. You can speak to any one of us here. We would be more than happy to talk to you, Pastor Garrett Jackson. Our here, we're available. God may be speaking to you right now about refocusing your life. Perhaps you want to refocus, recommit, or recenter your life on the Lord like the psalmist. The Lord's ready and waiting. So the next step in the decision is yours. Listen to the prompting this morning as we pray and as we sing our response song. Lord, lead us now in this time, as we've heard your word, may it speak to our hearts and may it guide our steps and our decisions in our life. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.