(upbeat music)
- Welcome back to Drive Time Devotions
and our look together at Psalm 84.
This is one of those psalms, Psalm 84,
where I feel like all we need to do is read it.
The hope and the joy and the worship are so obvious.
And so I'm gonna do that.
I'm gonna read this entire psalm, verses one to 12,
and I'm gonna ask you,
'cause sometimes when you read a long passage of scripture,
it's harder to keep concentration.
So just intentionally right now, decide to concentrate
on what God has to say to your heart
over these next 12 verses.
Psalm 84, "How lovely is your dwelling place,
O 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 a nest for herself,
where she may have her young, a place near your altar,
O Lord Almighty, my King and my God.
Blessed are those who dwell in your house.
They are ever praising you.
Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts 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,
till each appears before God in Zion.
Hear my prayer, O Lord Almighty.
Listen to me, O God of Jacob.
Look upon our shield, O God.
Look with favor on your anointed one.
Better is one day in your courts than a thousand 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.
No good thing does he withhold
from those whose walk is blameless.
O Lord Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you.
Oh wow, what wonderful pictures and expressions
come out of this psalm.
This psalm is the source of so many songs and messages.
How lovely is your dwelling place.
That psalm, I'm home by Shane and Shane.
What joy, better is one day in your house
than thousands elsewhere.
One site that I looked at listed over 60 songs
based just on this psalm.
Now this psalm is a pilgrimage psalm.
In the midst of it, he says in verse five,
people who have set their hearts on pilgrimage,
people who are going up to Jerusalem
to worship God in his temple.
You are on a pilgrimage.
That's the life of believers.
We are all on a pilgrimage.
John Bunyan's famous book, Pilgrim's Progress,
Christian, through that book,
goes through this progress, a pilgrimage,
on his way to the celestial city.
And on his way, he meets people like Mr. Worldly Wiseman
and hypocrisy and formality,
and he goes through places like Vanity Fair
and the Giant's Doubting Castle.
All on this pilgrimage.
You are on a pilgrimage.
And it might feel right now like maybe you're stuck
or even going backwards,
but you're on a spiritual journey.
That's what it means to know Christ.
I know it may feel like you'll never get out of the valley
that you're in right now,
but you are ascending towards God's temple.
And this psalm talks to us about the heart we need
as we are in that pilgrimage.
Here's what people on a pilgrimage do.
Here's what the psalm tells us.
First, they look towards where they're headed.
They strongly look towards
and they picture where they're headed.
Verse two.
My soul yearns even faints for the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
So being on a pilgrimage means you don't just look
at what's going on around you.
You look at the place you're headed towards.
And we're headed towards perfection and holiness
with God for an eternity.
And we have to look towards that place in the pilgrimage
we're going through in this world.
As you read through this psalm,
you find that those who are on a pilgrimage
also make the valley on the way a place of springs.
It says in verse six,
as they pass through the valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs.
Well, Baca is a word that's related
to the Hebrew word for weep.
It has the idea of a weeping willow,
a weeping tree, a tree that looked like it was weeping,
but it has the idea of weeping behind it.
And you're gonna pass through times of weeping
in this world.
Make it a place of springs.
Realize that even when you're weeping,
you can draw on the living water.
That Jesus is there.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Even as you're weeping, you keep drinking living water.
You keep drinking living water.
That's what you do on the pilgrimage.
In this pilgrimage, it also says they go
from strength to strength in verse seven.
They go from strength to strength
till each appears before God in Zion.
You're gonna have times of weakness in your life,
but you're also gonna have times of strength.
There's gonna be valleys,
there's also gonna be mountaintops.
These verses are talking about a journey.
They're going up to Jerusalem, to the temple.
And why do they go from strength to strength?
Because, here's why.
Because they're going to a place of worship.
The way to go from strength to strength in your life
is not to try to go from success to success.
It's to go from worship to worship.
The way to go from strength to strength in your life
is not to try to go from good time to good time.
It's to go from worship to worship.
Now, the truth is, for you and I,
as followers of Christ today,
we don't need to go to a temple.
We are a temple.
And to go to a place of strength to strength,
we don't have to go to Jerusalem
or some city in the world.
Right now, where you are,
you can recognize the strength
that comes from worshiping God.
Now, the pilgrimage that you're going through in this life,
it may be long, it may not be as long as you thought.
It's probably gonna get a lot longer than you thought.
But whatever pilgrimage you are on,
you want to get there, you want to get to the end.
How do I get to the end of this pilgrimage
with a sense of trust in God?
You recognize that to go to a place of worship,
I have to build on a heart of worship.
Heaven is a place where we're gonna worship God
for all eternity.
So to build towards strength to strength towards that place,
I build a heart of worship all my life.
It's easy to try to build on your successes.
It's easy to try to build on some kind of victory
in this world.
But when you start to build your life on worship,
then you're on a pilgrimage.
People who are on a pilgrimage,
here's another thing that they do in this passage.
They value what's truly valuable.
I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God.
I'd rather be like the lowliest person in the house of God
than have all the riches in this world,
have everybody be impressed with me, but it mean nothing.
You don't have to read much about the rich and powerful
to know it's not such a great thing to be rich and powerful.
There's a lot of loneliness there.
There's a lot of heartache there
because the rich and powerful have learned something.
You can't find satisfaction in riches.
You can't find satisfaction in power.
It can only be found in God.
So those who are on this pilgrimage,
they'd rather choose one day in God's house
than a thousand elsewhere.
They value what's truly valuable.
So if you're gonna be on this pilgrimage,
valuing the things of this world
is gonna get you stuck where you are
or make you feel like you're stuck where you are.
So start again to value what God values,
what's truly valuable.
Oh, one other thing about those who are on this pilgrimage,
it reminds us that they know
that God is their son and their shield.
They know that God is their protection.
God is their provision in life.
God is our confidence in this pilgrimage,
the sun that shows us the way,
the shield that protects us when we're attacked.
Shields, by the way, don't keep you from being attacked.
Shields protect you when you are attacked.
God doesn't say to us on this pilgrimage,
you're never gonna face an attack.
We talked about that earlier this week.
We're gonna have battles, but he is our shield.
He protects us when we are attacked.
And so three questions as we end,
questions that all pilgrims must ask.
Question one, what do you need to let go of?
When you're on a pilgrimage,
you can't carry your whole house with you.
You gotta let go of some things.
What attitudes do you need to let go of?
What maybe things do you need to let go of
in order to make this trip,
in order to be on the pilgrimage that God wants you on?
Second question, what do you need to hold on to?
You gotta pick up some things to get there.
Pilgrimage, a physical one might require a walking stick,
certainly requires a water bag.
What do I need to hold on to
that maybe I haven't been holding on to before?
If I'm gonna make my way through this pilgrimage.
And the third question,
what do you need to look forward to?
Pilgrimages are headed somewhere.
It's not just about the journey.
I understand that phrase.
I understand and can resonate
with some of the meaning behind it,
but it is not just about the journey.
It's about where God is taking you on this journey
to a place of hope, to a place of worship,
to a place of perfect love.
What do you need to look forward to today?
What do you need to hold on to today?
What do you need to let go of today?
Let's pray together.
Father, thank you.
Thank you that we can worship you.
And right now, you might want to just say this
in prayer to God.
Right now, I want to let go
of the things that are dragging me down.
Things that are dragging me away from seeing you
or spending time with you or worshiping you.
And God, I want to hold on to the things that lift me up.
Help us, Lord, to find your presence on our daily lives.
It's there, but sometimes we miss it.
And so, Father, we pray right now
that we would hold on to your love.
We'd hold on to your hope.
We'd hold on to your faithfulness.
We'd hold on to your blessings.
And we recognize that in those things,
we can truly worship you.
And Father, we also want to focus
on what we have to look forward to.
We have a life to look forward to
and the plans that you have for us
and what you're gonna work out in our lives,
but we also have heaven to look forward to
and the eternity that you have for us,
no matter what happens in this life.
So right now, in a spirit of worship,
I say to you, Father, I look forward to those things.
And in that spirit, I come into your courts.
I come into that place of your presence.
And I pray that as this Psalm expresses,
my soul would faint, even yearn for your presence.
I need your spirit to put that into my life.
There are many things that I can yearn for
and want in my life.
Father, help me even more and more to want,
to yearn for your presence, to want your word,
to desire your expressions of love in my heart.
Right now, I come to you.
I recognize your presence in my life.
And whether I feel it or emotionally or not,
I recognize it because I know it's true.
Thank you, Jesus, for loving me.
Thank you, God, for caring for me.
I know that there's not a moment in my life,
there's not a moment of this day I'm facing,
when you'll not be with me.
And in that confidence, I pray that I walk the pilgrimage,
the journey you have for me today in faith.
And I pray it in Jesus' name, amen.
Well, join us tomorrow.
We're gonna look at Psalm 85, totally different look.
What to do when you feel far from God.
(upbeat music)