Psalm 84

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Good morning and welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day we get together, we get into God's Word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2021, we'll make it through all the wisdom literature. Well, this morning we are at Psalm 84.
Hey, it's good to see you, Terry. Let me know down in the comments, where do you find your strength? Let me know down there. Before we get into this Psalm, where do you go when you find yourself weak? Why don't we go ahead and we'll have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for what a rich blessing it is to get to come to your word, to sit at your feet, to hear from you. We pray now that you would, by your Holy Spirit, open our eyes, open our ears, let us hear, read, and believe your word. In Jesus's name, amen.
All right, here we go. Let's go ahead and turn over to Psalm 84. Let's go over there. Hey, Karen, good to see you. Thanks for joining this morning. Oh, real quick, you know I don't like doing this, but it really helps the Facebook algorithms and stuff and YouTube. Hit that like button and let other people know that this is helpful to you. Let's go ahead and turn now to Psalm 84.
To the chief musician on a stringed instrument of Gath, a psalm of the sons of Korah. 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. 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 who dwell in your house, they will still be praising you, Selah. Blessed is the man whose strength is in you, whose heart is set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the valley of Baka, they make it a spring. The 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. Selah. O God, behold our shield. Look upon the face of your anointed. For 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. For the Lord God is a sun and a shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly. Oh Lord of hosts, bless us the man who trusts in you. Well, what a beautiful psalm.
This is one of these psalms where, remember the psalmist is writing here when there was a physical temple. And as he went to the temple, he longed, the psalmist longs to go where the people of God are, where the presence of God is, where the sacrifice is, where they could pray. And there at the temple, he's looking around and he's overjoyed, rejoicing at who God is. Notice what he says in the first, my soul longs, just even faints for the courts of the Lord. There's a whole section of the Psalter that we're going to get to in a few weeks called the Psalms of Ascent that people would sing as they were going up, and this is kind of like a preview of that.
It's just so exciting to go into God's presence. Now I'm just going to ask you, when's the last time you've been excited to go and worship with God's people? When's the last time you could say, I've longed to go to church? not because it's a building, but because the people are now the temple of God. I've longed for it, right?
And when we're there and we're singing, he finds himself looking around. You can imagine the great big pillars that would go up into the sky and all just surrounded by this amazing temple. And as he was there, he looks and there's a bird. A bird's made her nest somewhere up, probably up on the columns. And there he says, Even the birds find their rest in the courts of God. Even there, the birds can care for their people.
God's going to care for me. And in the light of all that, he says, blessed are those who dwell in your house. They will still be praising you. Blessed are the man whose strength is in you. The temple was that constant reminder that it was God who was the King of Israel. It was God who was the one who made the world, and it was God who was the one who accepted sacrifice and made all things right.
Is that what you think about when you come to church? We don't come to a temple made by human hands anymore, but we come to the living temple when we gather together as the church. And as we are together as those living stones, do we look and do we see? God's at work. God is the king. Jesus is on his throne. These are redeemed people. And isn't that what he says?
He asks God in verse 9, O God, behold our shield and look upon the face of your anointed. I'm going to change the translation there a little bit. O God, behold our shield and look upon the face of your Messiah, your anointed one. This is what we remember when we come to church. This is what we remember when we gather together as the people of God. God, look upon your Son and be gracious to us. Isn't that how he closes that in verse 11? For the Lord God is a sun and a shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly. Oh, Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in you.
So I'm just going to go ahead and skip from A to C and ask you, B, what's the best verse? Let me know down in the comments, which I would highlight a whole bunch in this. But let me know down in the comments, what would you highlight as the best verse to get at the heart of the meaning here? C, calling.
You weren't meant to be a Christian by yourself. God says that if we love Him, we'll love one another. Your brothers and sisters in Christ need you and you need them. We weren't meant to be solo as we walk, but we were meant to go to the temple of God. to praise Him, to worship Him.
Let me encourage you. Maybe you can find this tomb, you can find a recording of this psalm in the Book of Psalms for Worship. If you type in Psalm 84, Book of Psalms for Worship on YouTube or Spotify, you'll be able to find this psalm. Maybe you might commit it to memory. and think of it as you go to worship God this Sunday. Let's go ahead and pray.
Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for what a rich blessing it is to worship you, to love you. Lord, we thank you that your grace and your glory shines upon us that you love us because you have looked upon our son and our shield. our Messiah. We trust in you and in your strength. In Jesus' name, Amen. May the Lord bless you today. May He fill you with joy and peace as you look forward to that day when you get to worship God's people again, but also today as you glory in God who is your strength. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.