PSALMS | The Highways to Zion | Psalm 84 | Williams, C. (Guest)

Amen, please remain standing and turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 84 we just sang from Psalm 42 which was a psalm attributed to the sons of Korah. And here we find in Psalm 84 yet another Psalm attributed to the same authors, similar themes of our longing for Zion, Psalm 84 to the choir master, according to the kiteth, a Psalm of the sons of Korah, how lovely is your dwelling place? O Lord of hosts, my soul longs yes it faints for the courts of the Lord.

My heart and my flesh, sing for joy to the living God, even the sparrow finds a home to swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young upon your altars. O Lord of hosts, my King and my God, how blessed are those who dwell in your house ever singing your praise.

How 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 upon the face of your Anointed One. For a day in your courts is better than 1000 elsewhere, I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and a shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, How blessed is the one who trusts in You?

Well, The grass withers and its flower fades, but the Word of our Lord endures forever. Please be seated. Think we're all familiar with the phrase Home is where the heart is, and I just realized I haven't prayed.

Please forgive me. Let's pray Our gracious God and Father, how eager we are to study your word, but also we recognize that unless your Spirit is at work, then we would be unable to see those things which were clearly given to us in Your word, we're like blind men going out to stare at the sun. It is not as though the sun is not giving forth its rays, but the problem is our own blindness.

And unless you, O Lord, were to open our eyes, we would be unable to perceive and see clearly that which gives light to all men.

And so we pray that the light of your spirit would shine forth in our hearts, that we would see the light of the gospel in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Speak to us Lord, that we might hear, open up our ears, that we might sing forth your praise, that we too might long to dwell in Your holy place, we ask these things in Christ's name, Amen, Home is where the heart is.

There's an eagerness that we all feel for particular places, people and times and seasons.

And seems as though that the longer and farther you are from home, the more intense the pool there is to come back is to live in Oregon, probably the most beautiful place I've ever been in the world. I lived at the base of the Cascade Mountains. And as beautiful as it was to wake up every morning and see those mountains and to see the deer, there's something about being 3000 miles away from your loved your loved ones, even in the state of Florida, where it's not as mountainous here.

But it doesn't matter, Home is where the heart is, even where, when home is not as beautiful as the places you might be living abroad home is the gage by which time and distance are measured.

It's why the final hour on the clock at work and at the office feels like a lifetime.

Perhaps it's while you're it's why your two week family vacation seems to go by in but a moment, because you're finally with the people you love, doing the things that you love.

We All Long. We all ache for home. We All Long For those people that make home, home.

Remember years ago, as a friend of mine, actually a friend of the McNeil's as well. You remember Ben curry?

He was dating Lydia.

It's very, very quick courtship.

But I remember right after they got engaged, Ben's family took him on a celebratory weekend excursion, and they came back, and I remember asking his family, how is it? How was the trip? They said it was good. We were celebrating the fact that he was about to get married, but he was just so downtrodden the whole weekend. And then when they asked, Why are you so sad?

This is all for you, he goes, Yes, but I just want to be with my sweetheart.

Even just those 48 hours away from his loved one, caused him to ache, even in a time of great joy.

Well, our Psalm this morning reminds us of our true home, and in so doing, it returns our heart to the song of heaven.

We live in an age where the pleasures of this world seek to distract us, where there is this cacophony of voices that send our moral compasses and its needle spinning.

But I think Psalm 84 helps recalibrate the heart's compass to its true north, and sets our sights once more on the things above.

And it does so by teasing out, I think, three poignant images for the homesick and for the lovesick pilgrim.

First, we'll consider the image of the sparrow in verses one to four.

Secondly, that of the springs in verses nine to 12, and then finally, that of our shield in verses nine to 12. So the sparrow verses one to four, the springs in verses five to eight, and the shield in verses nine to 12.

Psalm 84 begins a new collection of songs within Book Three of the Psalter. If you've noticed, as you read your way through the book of Psalms, you'll find that they have been collated. They're not randomly, haphazardly thrown together. They put into a collection of five distinct books, Psalms, one to 42 Psalm, 43 to 72 Psalm, 73 to 105 and then and so on and so forth.

And this third book of Psalms, Psalms, 73 to 89 really focus on the question of wise living.

How ought we to conduct ourselves as aliens and pilgrims and sojourners and strangers in this earthly wilderness. And beginning in Psalm 84 and moving forward for the next few Psalms, they're all attributed to the same author, or collection of authors known as the Sons of Korah, who all together have written about a dozen psalms in the prayer book of the church, and nearly all of the psalms of the songs of Korah deal with the same theme, the theme of longing for God as a sojourner longs for his homeland, even as we sung a few moments ago, as pants the heart for living water. So my soul pants for the living God. These psalms that evoke this, this thirsting for a righteousness that only God can quench, we forget how lovely the temple is, the longing to build a home for the Lord served and functioned as the heartbeat of David's reign and of Solomon's remember, O Lord in David's favor all the hardships that David endured as he swore. I will give no rest to my eyes until I find a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob and so now here, the Psalmist echoes that same sentiment, a longing for the courts of the Lord, that the Lord would, in fact, inhabit a particular place to dwell with a particular people. And here the psalmist sings of the loveliness of that heavenly homeland. But now, when the sons, of course, speak of the loveliness of the heavenly courts, they are not so much speaking of the beauty of the temple for which the Temple of that age that the temple of Jerusalem served as a as a picture, as a schematic of the heavenly homeland.

But rather, the focus here is on the intensity of their love for the homeland. It's not so much, as one commentator puts it, how beautiful the temple is, though that might be true, but the focus here is, how much do I love that temple, the place where God's glory dwells.

We see such sentiments gushing over into the following verse as he speaks of a longing that he feels with every fiber of his being. Notice this. It is his soul, his heart, even his flesh.

It burns within him. He feels it in his bones, languishing, wasting away every moment that he is far from the temple courts. Surely, those temple courts must have been beautiful, we recall and.

As an exiled people return home after 70 years being away, and they see the temple lying in ruins and how the grown men are weeping at its destruction.

Certainly, the temple courts were beautiful, but even more beautiful is the one who inhabits the temple, the Lord of Glory.

Here's the place where God Himself dwells, that he is delighted to establish this particular place, something that he promised to Moses, that when he was going to give to his land, to his people, a particular land, that he says, I will set my name in a particular place. The place of my choosing is there where you will go up to worship the heights of Mount Moriah, the place where the temple is built.

And here the temple has been built.

And now the psalmist makes his way to the temple, and he says, even as he's there, he begins to envy even the sparrows who nest in the temple courts. I want you to imagine this. It's an outdoor courtyard. Certainly there's going to be birds that make their habitation there. I remember I used to pastor right outside of Chicago, and on my days off, I take the train from Wheaton, Illinois, 15 miles eastward into downtown Chicago, into Ogilvy Center Station. As all the trains converge into this big open arena. There's this massive food court, of course, these open doors, and so naturally, above the Popeyes and the Dunkin Donuts are all these birds that have nested themselves above and I would think, man, how jealous Am I that you're this close to Popeyes and a Dunkin Donuts. One can imagine a similar scene in the outer courts in Solomon's day. How envious This makes the psalmist. Here's a man who longs day after day to return to a place that he never hopes to leave. He has to go home, at least at some point in the day.

The birds don't though, who knows what has kept him from the temple courts. Perhaps he has been in exile for a season.

Perhaps this is one of the sons of Korah who, if you recall the Levites, not all the Levites lived in Jerusalem. They served in the temple on rotations.

Perhaps he's been away for a season of months, and he's finally making his way up. Or perhaps he has gone his way up for one of those three times a year that every Israelite, every male Israelite, at least, was to go up three times a year to worship. And he thinks how I have longed to make my way here.

Perhaps he does live in town and he just has to go home and clocks out at the end of the night. But he still thinks it doesn't matter how long I've been away, it's still too long.

Look at the birds they don't ever have to leave, and how envious it makes him to be as the birds who make their nests. And yet, I think there's more to the imagery here. Isn't there? Because you notice this, that the birds are not simply nesting in the crevices of the temple complex, hanging above and hovering above, as it were, a food court, as if we were in oboe V station in downtown Chicago. Here, he sings of a sparrow who has brought her children to be laid upon the altar, to be consumed, as it were, as a living sacrifice.

We remember that birds were the presence of paupers to be offered up in smoke and incense before the Lord you consider Joseph and Mary, who were so poor that when they came to the temple, they couldn't afford a lamb to offer to the Lord, but they could afford a turtle dove and a pigeon, which is what they offered. I tend to remind her, perhaps, that even the humblest of creatures have a place in the household of the lofty One who sits enthroned on high.

There is a place for the rich and the poor alike in the temple of our God, but the sparrow knows her purpose to lay herself and her family at the altar.

And yet, how much better to be sacrificed willingly upon the altar of Yahweh than to be ensnared unwillingly at the hands of the Fowler who seeks the death and destruction of those birds. How often does David compare himself to a bird escaping the trappings of a hunter?

And now here the psalmist says, if I must die, I want to be burned at your altar, O Lord, sacrificed willingly.

That is, that is my intent and purpose. This is the very thing for which I have been created.

Imagery here that hints at the purpose, the purpose of every true worshiper, as we are all commanded to offer up ourselves by the tenders mercies of God, to be.

Living sacrifices, offering up our lives as an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord. And here he says, how happy when you hear that word, blessed. It's an old word. I love that word. You need to be thinking happiness in its fullest sense. How happy is the man? How joyous is that man where even the smallest and the poorest of creatures can dwell in your courts, even for just a day.

And if happiness is found in God's dwelling place, we find that such happiness is also found along the highways which lead to the temple courts. You see that here in verses five to eight, how happy is the man whose strength is in you and whose heart are the highways to Zion. The idea is this that for every true worshiper, his heart is set on the road that leads to Zion. And if you've ever gone on a road trip with your family, I was talking with Nathan just before the service, they went up to you. Up to DC this past week.

And I remember as a kid, we'd have these, these family excursions up to western North Carolina. You get the road and we'd have the radio blur. You have these songs, you know, pop it on, Willie Nelson's on the road again. You know, these songs that just remind you of the family road trip. If you're longing to go to that final destination that you have your heart set upon.

We see that here where you're singing a song even greater than that of Willie Nelson, that for every true worshiper, his heart is set on the road that leads to heaven, every thought, every impulse, every longing, is guided by this grand theme, the Highway to Heaven is the source of the pilgrim's joy. Just being on the road, even though there's this aching because you haven't yet made it there to heaven, the fact that you are on the road, singing the songs is the very thing that puts fuel in the tank. Hank and yet this Pat, this stanza here, reminds us that our journey to Heaven is never done in isolation.

It's found in company with a band of brothers of like minded people singing that same song.

Isn't that what the apostle John says, that which we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you that you might have fellowship with us. The Bible doesn't have any concept of a lone ranger Christian.

We are called to be a band of pilgrims, a band of brothers embarking on a fellowship to heaven together.

What is it that fills the heart of these pilgrims?

It's not the lust of the flesh, it's not the lust of the eyes, it's not the pride of life, but it is a longing to dwell forever where God is.

And so they are the happiest of travelers, even when the path to Zion is beset with heartache and misery.

Here in verse six, the sons, of course, speak of the dark valley of weeping springs. It's the only road to get to Zion. There are no detours, no alternate roads, routes. The only way to get to the Heavenly Kingdom is a hard and treacherous journey. Narrow is the path, and few who walk this way are able to traverse it. One must pass through the Valley of Baca.

Perhaps some context is in place here for us to understand what the psalmist is saying. He speaks here at the Valley of Baca, using this imagery of the Baca shrubs, which in the ancient world and in these desert regions were these bustling bushes that would grow in arid areas where there is no water. According to Second Samuel chapter five, for instance, when the wind would blow, they would make the sound of rustling that sounded almost like weeping.

The poet here is, I think, using kind of vivid imagery in a kind of inspired poetic wordplay.

See here as they walk through the valley of weeping. That's what Baka means. It means weeping because the rustling sound of the leaves make this weeping sound as they walk through the Valley of Baca. The Lord turns it into a place of barakah, a place of springs, perhaps pointed differently in the Hebrew, a place of barakah, he turns into a place of blessing.

Imagine pilgrims making their way to Jerusalem, and they are forced to traverse this dark valley where there is no water.

The road is arduous and painful, and it leads to heartache and tears.

But here we find that the Lord sustains his sojourning citizens by transforming their tears into soul refreshing streams, the very source of their pain becomes the means by which they are fed as they make their journey to heaven, water in the desert food in the wilderness.

Think of what David himself says that, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for the enemies might encompass me, but You, O Lord, lead me beside calm streams and you spread out a feast in the wilderness.

My foes may surround me, but it is only goodness and mercy that will overtake me all the days of my life. Why that I might dwell in the Lord's house forever?

Matthew Henry, in commenting on the psalm, says this that the pilgrims to the heavenly city may have to pass through many a valley of weeping, but wells of salvation shall be open for them and consolation sent for their support. Paul himself speaks of this in Second Corinthians, where he talks about the resurrection power of Christ being manifest even in his ministerial sufferings to know that the power belongs to God and not to man, that even in the midst of the suffering of the church, it becomes the means by which the Lord feeds us with joy.

Here the turn comes in verse seven, from baca's dark valley to zion's brightened heights.

Here they go from strength unto strength as grace upon grace flows from God's gracious bounty. Here we find a river whose streams make glad the city of God, as God promises strength, day by day, with whatever provisions are needed for the perilous path until that fellowship reaches their heavenly home, and so the psalmist prays for the grace needed as he longs to arrive safely at the temple courts and to lay himself and even his family at the altar.

So we see in verse five, how happy is the man whose strength is in you, even in the midst of suffering, how Blessed is he whose strength is in the Lord, and He is happy indeed, because God has surrounded his people like a son and a shield, leading us to our final stanza. Behold our shield. O God. Look upon the face of your Messiah. Here we have this poetic parallelism.

Here the idea being this, that our shield is the Messiah.

Notice the parable. So in Hebrew poetry, it's not so much a rhyming of words as a rhyming of thoughts. And so we see the same idea being brought forth in two different ways. Where he says, Behold, O God, look behold what.

Look upon our shield. Who or what is our shield? Look upon the face of your anointed one.

Look upon the face of your Messiah.

What he's saying is that the pilgrim's shield is Christ Himself, the king of sojourners who will defend us and save us from all of our foes. It's as if the psalmist himself is praying, this, may your son shield us from the evils along the path. May he turn the valley of tears to rivers of joy?

May he turn my mourning into dancing and exchange the sackcloth for garments of gladness?

Why should we pray for the father to smile upon his son?

Why should we pray for him to look favorably upon our shield?

It's for this very reason verse 10, so that we might dwell with Him. The prayer is that that he would grant victory to his Messiah in protecting us, that we might make our way safely to heaven, that we might finally dwell where the Lord Himself inhabits. What we find here is a simple prayer, keep us safe along the way that we might be where the Lord is.

What could be better? That's the psalmist question in verse 10, as he teases out two contrasts, a difference of time and a difference of place. First we find here in this contrast of time, where he says, It's better to spend a day here than 1000 anywhere else. Think we all know the feeling when you have a loved one who has died, you gladly give up years just to spend another day with your dad or your wife or your son or your brother or your friend.

So here with the psalmist, just one day here outshines every other day combined anywhere else. But it leads us to a second contrast, not simply one of time, but also one of place, with yet another word play better to stand in the outer courts of Elohim than in the elohei of wickedness, the tents of wickedness, even.

Here he is, harkening back to a particular moment in Israel's history. I think we need to take a step back and consider the authors, the sons of Korah. When you read the book of Numbers, you're thinking, Korah. Why does that sound so familiar? Book of Numbers tells us that one of Moses' first cousins was named Korah, another Levite and core and his family were tasked with serving and setting up the tabernacle.

You think about that this tabernacle that goes in the wilderness, and their job is to set up all the tents and tear everything down as they go from from campsite to campsite. That is their task. It's a very important task. It's not a flashy task.

Korah is not getting the spotlight, but how critical this job is, and yet, for Korah, it's not good enough. Korah wanted preeminence. He wanted Moses' position of power. That's what we read of in the book of Numbers. He says, Moses, why should you have the spotlight?

All of us should have equal unfettered access into the Holy of Holies. I want to be where your seat of prominence and preeminence is.

And so He attempts a mutiny over the priesthood.

Moses warns the nations and says, Get away from him, because the Lord's about to respond to Cora's request.

Because Cora, it seems, has raised up a sizable mutiny, several 100 men, and the Lord answers Cora's demands, or he rains down fire from heaven and opens up the earth beneath and swallows and consumes Korah and all those who followed in his treachery.

And yet what's striking is Moses' warning to the people, where he tells the nation to depart from that tent of wickedness.

But then we are also told, in that same event that it just so happens that among the people who fled that tent were korah's own sons who wanted nothing to do with their father's treachery.

They did not join in their father's fate. As a result, may we consider how humiliating that would be to have that legacy hanging over your name and your family for the rest of your life. I mean, you read through the Psalms, there are whole songs written about korra's treachery. Could you imagine being a korahite going to going to church that day, and having to sing the psalm about how awful your father or grandfather was and how humiliating it would be, even when we make it to the New Testament, Jude warns against men like Korah, men who are always seeking preeminence of place, and now his sons have to live with that legacy. What I think is striking and really point in that, and this comes to bear on what's coming up in the next few verses is then the Book of Chronicles. We're told that when David finally has the makes preparations for the construction of the temple and begins this transition process, a transition that's completed under Solomon, that David appoints a certain group of men to be the gatekeepers to the temple.

He appoints the Sons of Korah this particular place, gatekeepers, again, not a flashy job, but it's certainly critical before the temple is built, they continue to serve as the porters. They're essentially the luggage carriers of the tabernacle they set up and tore down. The Tabernacle is Israel.

Israel sojourn from place to place. They're essentially the Lord's Bell hops. There is nothing flashy about that.

It is far from anything that Korah himself would have wanted anything to do with.

But here we have the sons, of course, saying this.

I'm content with that.

This is good enough for me, better to stand on the threshold of the temple than to dwell in the hearth of my father's tents, better to dwell in the outskirts of God's household than in the inner sanctum of the tents of wickedness.

Better to be a trash collector for the temple than to be a friend of yahweh's foes.

Better to serve in heaven than to reign in Hell.

It's as if the Sons of Korah are saying, I don't need the spotlight.

That's not what fuels my heart's deepest longings.

What I long for is the Lord Himself, and so long as I get to be with him, I don't care about being front and center. I.

Want to be where he is. Who do I have in heaven? But you, O Lord, there is nothing on earth I desire. Besides you, even my heart and flesh might fail. But the Lord is the strength of my heart, my portion forever. I don't even desire a name for myself, is what the psalmist is saying, because the Lord is my treasure.

He is my exceedingly great reward. He is my son, my shield.

Matthew Henry, again, though God has not promised to give riches and dignities, he has promised to give grace and glory to all that seek Him in His appointed way, and what is grace but heaven having begun below, and what is glory but the completion of that happiness of being made like him and in fully enjoying him forever.

Scottish Presbyterian Andrew Bonar says this, that the Lord is all brightness and no gloom and all safety.

He leaves not one unsatisfied wish.

In ancient Assyrian iconography, the sun was often drawn like a disk or a shield, and just as a shield protects the soldier from the fiery darts of the enemy. So the rays of the sun were said to shield the inhabitants of the earth from the looming darkness.

So that wherever the face of the Messiah shines, there is a shield and a defense for all who bear under his defense.

He is our portion and our shield, whatever our lot may be, he has taught us to say, it is well, it is well with my soul.

And so we find here a triple blessing in the Psalm. How happy then is the man who puts his faith in the Lord's anointed.

Three times in this song, we are told of the happiness of man, of the man who loves the holy courts, of the man who makes heaven his hope, and of the man who trusts in Him who is our heart's great desire of love and hope and faith, of faith, hope and love, all of which find their culmination in the Word made flesh, in him who tabernacled among us, who grants us favor and honor, who bestows upon us grace and glory, who himself for the hope that was set before Him, endured the cross with loud cries and tears, and Who by it, has opened up streams in the desert and a highway to holiness, is the Trailblazer of our pilgrim path and sojourning to Zion itself of Christ, who feeds us and shields us along the way, who transforms our greatest crosses into venues through which we find and taste the resurrection power of the age to come.

May this psalm imprint on our hearts a greater love for public worship. May it fuel the flames of faith as we sing together and gather with the saints as fellow travelers and work in us a deeper love for our God and King who promises to lead us from strength to strength through the work of His Messiah, our great Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, let's pray Our gracious God and Heavenly Father. We pray that you would take your word and so strike a fire that burns and never dies out in our hearts, that we might long to be with you and that you would answer our heart's great request to be where you are as our chief end, that you would be our exceedingly great reward.

We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen.