The Truly Blessed Life

Psalm 84.

My soul longs for the courts of the Lord.

Hear the word of the Lord.

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.

Silla.

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.

Their 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.

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.

O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you.

This is the word of the Lord.

Father in heaven, we're just so thankful for the gathering.

Father, we're so thankful for these precious words.

Father, we're so thankful for brothers like Michael and other pastors here that labor over your word.

To teach us what you have for us.

Father, we're just we're just so thankful for them.

And we just uh pray uh an anointment over uh brother Michael today as you bring your word to us.

Father, we're just eager to listen and learn for what you have for us today and for what you've brought to him, the word you brought to him.

And uh Father, we just we love you.

Praise be to Jesus in his name.

Amen.

Thank you, brothers.

For those of you who may not know me, uh my name is Michael Girardo.

I have the great privilege of serving as uh one of the pastors here this morning.

Um I get to conclude our summer survey of the Psalms, as next week we'll be uh jumping into the book of Philippians.

But as we read uh just a moment ago, we're gonna be in Psalm 84 this morning.

So if you have a Bible, I want to invite you to begin to turn there with me.

And as you do, I want to begin by talking about being homesick, homesickness.

Statistics say that 50 to 75% of people will experience this reality at one point or another.

And I'm not talking about that ordinary experience of missing loved ones.

I'm talking about that deep ache in your chest when you realize you're not where your heart longs to be.

You're far from home.

The knot in your stomach, the lump in your throat, the strange loneliness that can overwhelm you even when you're surrounded by other people.

As you can imagine, being new to this area, some of my family has experienced that in the recent past.

But for me, the most vivid experience of this came years ago when we moved to California.

I can still picture myself driving down the inner state, towering hills on either side of the highway, mountains stretching the entire distance.

Every drive felt like a front row seat to God's majesty.

For someone who lived their entire life in Florida, essentially at sea level, the California landscape was an open invitation to bask at God's glory.

And it happened every time we walked outside of our door.

And then one day, something unexpected happened.

We'd been living there for about a month.

I was on my way to meet a local pastor in the area, driving down the same stretch of highway and the same hills and mountains that once produced awe and wonder suddenly gave rise to a completely different emotion.

Awe and wonder suddenly turned into sadness and grief.

The landscape was no longer an example of God's glory.

It was a stark reminder that I was no longer at home.

3,000 miles away from my church, my family, my friends, essentially from everything and everyone I love.

I'm assuming many of you in this room have experienced that at some point.

Perhaps it was the first night in your college dorm room.

Maybe it was after your wedding when you moved away from your family for the first time.

Perhaps your job made you move to a city where you didn't know a single soul.

Even now, that ache comes back to your mind, that longing, that desire to be back home.

Well, that's exactly the emotion that Psalm 84 captures.

It's a song of a homesick soul, someone desperately longing for home.

See, while scholars may not agree on the exact circumstances behind this psalm, it becomes clear that the way that God's people used it in the Psalter was to remember Jerusalem, to remember that feeling of being cut off from the temple, unable to gather for worship.

And from that place of longing springs forth this beautiful psalm.

And yet, as we read through the text, it also becomes clear that the homesickness they were experiencing wasn't for a city.

It wasn't even for the temple itself.

Those were merely objects that point to something greater.

Beneath the psalmist's longing for a place is a longing for a person.

More than anything else, the psalmist is longing for the presence of God.

Here's the main idea I want us to see from this text as we begin to work our way through it.

You'll see the statement on the screen.

The truly blessed life is found in the presence of God.

The truly blessed life is found in God's presence.

See, we live in a world today that often equates the blessed life with a hassle-free life.

You have the house you've always wanted, blessed.

The car you've always wanted, bless.

The career you work so hard for, blessed.

The picture perfect family, blessed, good health, blessed.

Instagrammable vacations, blessed.

And listen, in and of these, in and of themselves, none of these things are bad.

They're often gifts from God.

But what happens when those gifts go away?

What happens when they simply seem like distant memories?

When sadness and grief become permanent house guests?

Are we no longer blessed?

Have we been suddenly cursed?

Well, Psalm 84 answers that question with a resounding no.

In other words, the abundant life, the life of fulfillment and satisfaction, the truly blessed life is found in the presence of God.

Why?

Because the greatest gift God has ever given his people is himself.

And friends, he can never be taken away from those who belong to him.

In Psalm 84, the psalmist shows us three specific blessings that belong to everyone who dwells in God's presence: rest for the weary, strength for the weak, and sufficiency for those in need.

Rest, strength, sufficiency, all found in God's presence.

So with the time we have remaining, let's look at each of these in turn as we work our way through the text.

Here's the first point.

You'll see this on the screen.

Blessed are those who long for the Lord, for they will experience rest in his presence.

Those who long for the Lord will find his rest.

Look back at the text.

The Psalm begins in verse 1.

He says, How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts.

The place being described here is the temple in Jerusalem, the place where the people of God would gather to worship.

And the various words used in these first few verses make this abundantly clear.

The phrase dwelling place in verse 1 literally means tabernacle.

In verse 2, he refers to the courts of the temple.

Verse 3, he makes reference to its altars.

And in verse 4, he refers to it as the house of God.

And that's exactly what makes this place lovely.

Notice whose dwelling place it is.

The psalmist says, your dwelling place, your courts, your altars, your house.

See, when the psalmist declares how lovely is your dwelling place, he isn't making an observation about the temple itself.

He isn't marveling at the architecture or the materials that were used, regardless of how beautiful they may have been.

He is expressing his love for the temple because of the person who dwells in it.

The beauty of the temple is derived from the beauty of God's presence.

I want to briefly introduce you to the writers of this psalm.

Look down at your Bible.

Right below the title, Psalm 84, you'll find a subscript that says to the choir master, according to the Gidith, that's an ancient musical term.

But here's what I want to point out: it says, A Psalm of the Sons of Korah.

This subscript identifies the authors of this Psalm.

The sons of Korah were one of the Levitical families in Israel.

So quick history lesson.

The tribe of Levi, one of the twelve tribes of Israel, they were set apart to help oversee the worship of God.

And within this tribe, each clan, each family was given different responsibility.

And Korah and his family were essentially assigned some of the most ordinary and humbling tasks, grunt work, if you will.

So during the Israel's wilderness journey, they were responsible for setting up and tearing down the tabernacle.

Later in the temple, they served as gatekeepers who essentially kept the outer courts clean.

You can read about this in the book of Numbers in chapters three and four.

But here's what I want us to see.

While the sons of Korah served in the background, be behind the scenes, so to speak, they learned this valuable lesson.

Nothing or no one can rival the beauty of God's presence.

Nothing can compare to the glorious reality of drawing near to his presence in worship.

Nothing can satisfy the longing soul like the living God.

It was a reality that the sons of Korah experienced day after day as they served in the temple courts.

But now, as this Psalm is written, something has changed.

For reasons we aren't told with certainty, the sons of Korah find themselves far from Jerusalem.

Some scholars believe this was written during the Babylonian exile, or at the very least, utilized by the people of God during their exile.

And so they're hindered by distance.

They're unable to attend the house of the Lord, but more importantly, they're separated from the place where God's presence dwelled.

And this separation creates a deep longing in the psalmist.

A yearning, an eager desire, this almost insatiable hunger and thirst for God.

Look back at the text again.

In verse 2, now he says, My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord.

My heart and my flesh, they sing for joy to the living God.

Consider the words used here to describe himself: soul, heart, flesh.

He points both to his inward being, but also to his outward body.

In other words, all of who he is longs for all of who God is.

And this isn't some half-hearted desire, not like eh, I kind of miss the temple.

No, he can't live without it.

The word longing here refers to deep sadness.

He's been overcome by grief, so much so he says he faints for the Lord.

He's spent, he's weary because of his longing.

He's exhausted by the desire that he experiences within his soul.

And church, what we find is that the longing of the psalmist is the same longing inside of every single one of us.

Every person who has ever lived is born with this same ache, a hunger, a thirst that nothing in this world can satisfy.

Why?

Because we were created for God.

As Colossians 1 reminds us, all things were created through God, through Him, but also for Him, for God, meaning our ultimate purpose is to be satisfied in God, in God alone, and every other longing we experience in this world is meant to point us to that greater reality.

Here's how Augustine, writing in the fifth century, puts it.

And our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

Wonder how many of us show up this morning with that sense.

Wrestling with the restlessness in our hearts.

It shows up in a whole different host of ways, longing for love.

Desiring intimacy and belonging, pursuing meaning, purpose, significance, fulfillment, happiness, pleasure, you name it, and yet always coming up empty.

Always being left with a desire for more.

If that's you this morning, there's good news.

Look back at the text.

Psalmist continues in verse 3.

He now says, Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young at your altars.

Commentators debate the precise significance of these birds.

Some see symbolism where there probably isn't.

Others treat them as nothing more than decoration.

But I think the words of Jesus help us understand why the psalmist chose the sparrow as an example.

Matthew 10, Jesus is having a conversation with his disciples about fear, and he asks the following question.

You'll see this verse on the screen.

He asks, are not two sparrows sold for a penny?

And he's alluding to the insignificance of the sparrow.

They were considered the lowliest of birds, if you will, which is why they were sold for so cheap.

He says, Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?

And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father.

But even the hairs of your head are all numbered, fear not, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows.

Now, obviously, Matthew 10 isn't interpreting Psalm 84, but Jesus' words deepen our appreciation of the image.

If the Father watches over even the smallest of sparrows and swallows who are known for just flying back and forth chaotically, if he makes these birds a home in their presence, how much more can we find our home in the presence of God?

We who are so valued that this morning he even knows the numbers of hairs on your head.

How much more does our Heavenly Father welcome us into His presence?

How much more does He invite restless souls to come and find their home in Him?

And that's exactly what Jesus does.

In the following chapter, Matthew 11, he says the following words, words you've probably heard millions of times, but I'm imploring you this morning, don't hear them as words spoken two thousand years ago.

Hear them as your Savior inviting you today.

Jesus speaks to you and he says, Come to me.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you what?

Some crowd participation.

Rest.

He says, Take my yoke upon you, learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your soul.

Are you tired this morning?

Do you find yourself weary?

Exhausted from the constant striving, longing for something to satisfy you.

Are you restless because you've tried to make something other than God your home?

Then Jesus says, Come.

Come and find rest in my presence.

Come and find in me what you've been searching for everywhere else, and when you do, Psalm 84 tells us what we will discover.

Verse 4.

First of four blessings we find in this text, he says, Blessed, fulfilled, satisfied, the good life.

Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise.

The truly blessed life is found in the presence of God.

It is promised to those who make God their dwelling place.

And the end result is true, lasting rest.

Listen, even when chaos surrounds us.

Blessed are those who long for the Lord, for they will experience rest in his presence.

Here's the second promise we find in this text.

You'll see this statement on the screen.

Blessed are those who seek the Lord, for they will experience the strength of his presence.

Seek the Lord, experience his strength.

Look back at the text, verse 5.

The psalmist continues.

As they go through the valley of Bacchah, 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.

The psalmist now shifts from an image of dwelling in God's presence to traveling to God's presence.

What's described in these verses is the journey that the Israelites would take to Jerusalem.

Three times a year, God's people would leave their towns, their villages, and they would travel to the temple to worship.

The trip would often last days for some weeks as they traveled through steep, rocky terrain, climbing mountains, descending valleys, enduring the blistering heat of the day and then the cold of the hills by night.

All that to say the journey to Jerusalem was far from easy.

Quite the opposite.

It was a strenuous and tireless journey.

And this reality is underscored by the description of the valley in verse 6.

First, the surrounding verses seem to suggest that this was an arid, dry, or parched stretch of land with no water.

In other words, hot and barren.

But then, secondly, it was named the Valley of Baca, which means nothing to us.

But in Hebrew, that word means weeping.

As a matter of fact, some of your Bibles most likely have it transliterated as the valley of tears.

The name alone says it all.

This was the kind of place where hearts would become weary, where bodies became weak, where laughter turned into weeping.

And yet, and yet the psalmist says it was there in the valley of tears that the people of God would be met with the strength of God.

This is the paradox of the Christian faith.

You can't help but read the Psalms without understanding that life is fraught with sorrow and pain, that life is accompanied with hardships and tears, and yet you can't help but read those same Psalms without uh discovering this glory, glorious reality that when we are at our weakest, it is then that we are best positioned to experience the fullness of God's power.

Consider some of the Following examples from the Psalter.

I'll read this very quick.

Psalm 46 says, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

When we experience trouble, we come face to face with the strength of God.

Psalm 68, Awesome is God from His sanctuary, the God of Israel.

He is the one who gives what?

Power and strength to his people.

Psalm 73, my flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 138, on the day I called, if you read that Psalm, it's a time of distress.

He says, You answered me, my strength of soul you increased.

From beginning to end, the Psalms declare the same message.

Life is hard.

Scripture pulls no punches, as I heard one guy say this week, it often feels like a divine punch in the face.

One-third of the Psalms are laments for good reason.

In this life, Jesus said, You will have trouble.

And yet it's in our distress, it's in our pain, it's in our grief, in the moment of complete weakness, that we come face to face with the power and strength of our God.

The question is, how?

How do we experience his strength?

After all, the psalmist says, Blessed is the one whose strength is in you.

So the question is, how do we attain this strength that God seems so eager to give his people?

Well, the second part of verse 5 tells us, look back at the text.

Verse 5, he says, Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.

The hearts of these pilgrims had become highways to the presence of God.

The imagery here is staggering.

The roads they traveled physically became a picture of what God was doing spiritually in them.

The road beneath their feet was leading them to the temple in Jerusalem.

Oh, but the highways in their heart was leading them to the presence of God.

But here's what I want us to see.

What I want us to understand this morning.

The hearts of these pilgrims did not become highways to Zion overnight.

Their hearts did not become deeply oriented toward God by accident.

No, no, no.

Their hearts became highways to Zion because of a lifetime of seeking the Lord.

It required intentionality.

It required these pilgrims to consistently seek the presence of God.

See, the word for highways in verse 5 describes a well-worn, a well-traveled road.

It's a path that has been crossed so often, so consistently, that the way forward becomes unmistakable.

You can see it.

Earlier this year, my family visited the Mi-Mam Shelby Forest State Park.

It's just west of Millington.

We found the trail online and we decided to go for a hike.

But when we arrived there, we quickly realized we had a problem.

For about 10 minutes, we walked in the wrong direction because we couldn't find where the trail began.

Why?

Because the path wasn't clear.

It had been neglected.

Grass and weeds had overgrown it.

Fallen trees had covered parts of the trail.

There was no obvious pathway because it had not been consistently traveled.

See, a well-worn trail doesn't need many signs because the path itself has been clearly laid out by the repeated footsteps, the trampling of travelers who have walked the path so continuously.

And that's the picture the psalmist gives us.

Through years of worship, continually praying, depending upon the Lord over and over again, they had cultivated a heart where the path to God's presence was clear, unmistakable.

And here's the outcome.

When they were weak, they were met with the strength of God.

And I wonder this morning if the same can be said of us.

Is your heart?

Is my heart a highway to Zion?

Have we walked the path to God's presence so often that it has become well worn?

Do we seek Him so regularly, so consistently, that our hearts just instinctively know the way to His presence?

Or has the trail grown over with grass and weeds?

Have lesser loves, lesser joys, lesser glories obscured the path?

Have we allowed the noise of this world to become so loud that the way to his presence is no longer familiar?

Our Bibles have become nothing more than decorations on a shelf.

Our prayer life has been reduced to emergency calls to heaven when our world unravels.

And corporate worship is nothing more than a religious obligation.

We check off our to-do lists once a week.

See, no one, no one accidentally makes their way to God's presence.

Highways are formed through intentional, obedient, and repeated actions.

And that's what the psalmist is inviting us to.

Not to merely seek God's gift or to seek his face when everything goes wrong, but to seek him continuously.

Hearts that walk with him consistently, hearts that know him deeply, hearts that fully delight in the Lord so much so that the way to his presence is well worn.

And here's the blessing promised for those who do such a thing in Psalm 84.

When your heart truly seeks God's face, you better believe that the valley of tears will become a place of springs.

When you come to the end of yourself, when you come face to face with your utter weakness, you are met anew with his strength.

Not a mere pick-me-up.

The text says you go from strength to strength until you stand yet again before the presence of God.

Blessed are those who seek the Lord, for they will experience the strength of his presence.

Here's a final thing we see in this text.

You'll see this statement on the screen.

It's also in your listening guide.

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, for they will experience the sufficiency of his presence.

Trust in the Lord, experience his sufficiency.

Look back at the text.

Verse 10.

It says, 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.

We now come back to the sons of Korah.

Remember, they were doorkeepers, gatekeepers in the temple courts, one of the lowliest positions given to the Levitical families.

In many ways, they were nothing more than modern-day janitors who would keep the outer courts clean.

And yet they make this astonishing confession.

I would rather spend one day serving in the courts, just one day performing the lowliest of tasks, than a thousand duyis enjoying everything else this world has to offer.

Now, here's what's fascinating.

That hadn't always been the case for Korah and his family.

If you were to go back and read numbers 16, you'd find that Korah had a completely different posture.

He was not satisfied with the place God had given him, quite the opposite.

He had great disdain for it.

He wanted more.

He envied the positions of others so much so that he accuses Moses of plain favorites.

And the rejection of his position was nothing less than a rejection of God's authority.

And the outcome was devastating.

It's a crazy story.

If you haven't ever read it, go read number 16 today.

This is essentially what happens.

The ground underneath Korah splits apart, and the earth swallows him whole.

But somewhere between number 16 and Psalm 84, everything changed.

The sons of Korah had a completely different outlook on their position.

Now, of course, seeing your dad swallowed up by the earth might change your attitude a bit.

But there doesn't seem to be anything insincere about the claim in verse 10.

So what changed?

Well, it wasn't the work.

I don't think they suddenly fell in love with opening gates or sweeping temple courts.

The work hadn't changed.

But the sons of Korah had.

And slowly but surely their hearts became convinced of something again that Korah never believed.

There is no greater privilege than simply being near God.

The great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon does a great job of paraphrasing what the sons of Korah are expressing in these verses.

You'll see this quote on the screen.

He says, Under the most favorable circumstances in which earth's pleasures can be enjoyed, they are not comparable by so much as one in a thousand to the delights of the service of God.

To feel his love, to rejoice in the person of the anointed Savior, to survey the promises and feel the power of the Holy Ghost and applying precious truth to the soul is a joy which worldlings cannot understand, but which true believers are ravished with.

And he makes this amazing statement.

He says, God's worst is better than the devil's best.

God's doorstep is a happier rest than downy couches within the pavilions of royal sinners, though we might lie there for a luxury, a lifetime of luxury.

One day in the presence of God is better than a thousand elsewhere.

Do you believe that to be true this morning?

Have you experienced the presence of God in such a way that you've been convinced that His presence is better than anything this world has to offer?

And listen, the claim of the psalmist is not religious exaggeration, it is the result of someone who has tasted and seen the goodness of God's presence and has come to the rightful conclusion.

He is more than enough.

He is all that I truly need.

Look at verse 11.

The psalmist tells us why he believes this to be true.

He says, 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.

Think about these images.

What does the sun do?

It gives light and life, it provides direction and warmth.

A shield protects, it stands between you and your enemies.

As one commentator notes, the psalmist has experienced the Lord's presence as a sun for happy days and a shield for dangerous ones.

A sun above and a shield around, a light to show the way and a shield to ward off its perils.

But notice what the psalmist doesn't say.

He doesn't say God gives us everything we ask for.

He doesn't say God gives us everything we think is good.

No, he says, no good thing does he withhold, period.

In other words, if God withholds something from us, it is because in his infinite wisdom it was never truly good for us.

But if there is one thing, friends, that God never withholds from his children, it is himself.

That's the heartbeat.

That's the heart behind Psalm 84.

The greatest blessing that God gives is not health, prosperity, comfort, ease, all of your question answered, all of your heart heartache disappearing.

The greatest blessing God can give his people is his very presence.

And because he has given us himself, we can trust him with everything else.

Which is where the psalmist ends.

Verse 12, the last blessing we find.

He says, O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you.

Because we believe you're all we need, because we believe in the sufficiency of your presence, we can entrust the whole of our lives to you, knowing that doing so is where we will find the truly blessed life.

So, church, what do you need to entrust to the Lord today?

I love the image behind this Hebrew word.

A pastor, a friend of mine, once explained it this way it's this image of a son and a father rolling a ball back and forth.

The Hebrew word literally means to roll over.

So it's this image of a son taking a ball in his hand and just rolling it over to his trustworthy father.

So what does the Lord need you to roll over to him today?

What situation or circumstances keeping you up at night?

Roll it over to the Father.

What's causing you such turmoil that the grief and sorrow you're experienced just seems unbearable?

Roll it over to your trustworthy father.

What weight are you carrying?

That burden that seems like it's gonna crush your soul.

Roll it over to your father.

Maybe it's something you're afraid of losing.

Something you're desperately trying to control.

And the Lord this morning is saying, take those clenched fists and open them up.

Roll it over.

Because he's trustworthy.

Again, Psalm 84 doesn't promise that we'll get everything we ask for.

We may not believe this, but it offers us something even better.

It promises that when you entrust yourself to the Lord, God will give you himself.

And over time you will come to learn that he is more than enough.

He will give you a soul that will learn the sweetness of his presence.

We're finally with the sons of Korah, we can say, A day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.

As we end, I want to draw your attention to verses eight and nine.

These verses serve a very distinct function within the psalm.

The entire psalm is directed toward God.

It's spoken to him.

But verses eight and nine are the only ones which contain a request.

He says this, O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer.

God, hear me in this moment.

Give ear, O God of Jacob.

Behold our shield, O God.

The second half of verse 9, here's the request.

Look on the face of your anointed.

In all honesty, these two verses seem out of place.

And yet everything in this psalm hangs on this request.

The blessed life, rest for the weary, strength for the weak, sufficiency for the trusting, all of it hangs on this.

Look on the face of your anointed.

So who in the world is the psalmist referring to?

The simple answer is the king of Israel.

All throughout the Psalms, you find these sorts of prayer, the people of God praying for the anointed, for the king of Israel.

See, all throughout Israel's history, the king was referred to as God's anointed, the one who was set apart to rule and reign over Israel.

In many ways, he was the channel of blessing and curse over the people of God.

But here's the problem: even Israel's greatest kings could never secure the lasting blessing God's people truly needed.

David and Solomon loved the Lord, but they were flawed men nonetheless who failed at the height of their leadership.

And every king who followed followed in their footsteps.

The throne was always occupied by sinners who themselves needed saving.

That's why the Old Testament that looks forward to the greater anointed one.

The one promised of old who would reign on the throne of David forever and ever.

It points us to the Messiah.

In other words, it points us to Jesus.

See, the word Christ is a title that simply means anointed one.

And everything about Jesus tells us that he is the long-awaited Messiah.

When he was born, the angels announced him as the son of David, the one whose kingdom would know no end.

When he begins to preach, he declares, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

When he asks Peter, who do you say that I am?

he replies, You are the Christ, you are the anointed one.

The crowds hailed him as the blessed king who comes in the name of the Lord.

And when he was crucified, they put a sign over him that said, King of the Jews, from beginning to end.

The scriptures tell us that Jesus is the anointed one.

But unlike every other king before him, he would obey or every other earthly king had failed.

And more importantly, through his life, death, and resurrection, he accomplished what no other king could.

And that's why the writer of Hebrews says that we can confidently enter the presence of God.

How?

Through the blood of Jesus, the anointed one of Psalm 84.

You want to come into the presence of God, then, like the psalmist, we say, look on the face, look to the face of the anointed one.

Church of the Sons of Korah had access to the outer courts of the temple, and they counted it a great privilege.

And you and I have access to something far greater.

Because of Christ, we no longer have to stand at a distance.

We're invited beyond the outer courts and into the Holy of Holies.

We no longer have to even go to Jerusalem to meet with God because through his spirit, he has made us his dwelling place.

And we have been given full access to his presence.

And yet, so many of us have settled for far less than what Christ died to give us.

We settle for occasional moments with God instead of abiding fellowship.

We settle for hurried prayers instead of continual communion.

We settle for knowing about God while neglecting to delight in God.

Christ didn't merely die to forgive you of your sins, he forgave you of your sins so that you can have the greater blessing, access to his presence.

So, church, hear the invitation of your Savior this morning.

Come.

Draw near.

Make your home the presence of God because it is there that you will find the truly blessed life.

Draw near with confidence and find rest for your soul.

Draw near with confidence, find strength for your weary heart.

Draw with confidence and find the sufficiency for all that you need.

Find in him what your soul has been longing for all along.

Let's pray together.

Lord, we thank you for this morning.

We thank you for an opportunity to sit under your word.

I've been convicted all week that nothing that I say would be of any value unless you, by your spirit, move in the hearts of your people.

So I ask and pray that you have been doing that work, and I pray that it wouldn't end here.

I pray that we would take that which you have said to us, maybe a comfort given, maybe a challenge, an encouragement, whatever it may be, that we would go beyond this place and that we would continue to seek your presence.

That we would press toward that which you died to give us communion with you, fellowship abiding in your presence.

Oh God, help us to be the types of people who eagerly, every single day long to open up your word, because we believe that when we do, you will speak and we will meet with you.

Oh, help us to be the types of people who are continually throughout the day ceaselessly praying, having conversations with you.

Help us to be the types of people who see the great joy of gathering with the church because you are making us into your dwelling place.

Help us to see that that is where we will truly find the blessed life.

We ask and pray all this in the name of Jesus and your people's name.

Amen.