As Chris said earlier, if you were here, and he said it if you weren't here, but my name is Andrew Shank. I'm the REF campus minister at Western Carolina University, your campus ministry to various campuses around the country and even internationally. I'm ordained in the PCA, a member of our presbytery, and it's my privilege to be here and speak with you this morning. A little update first about our family. I have a wife, Trish, who is very glad that it's summer and that I'm not quite so busy with campus ministry. I have two daughters, Sophie, who's four and a half, and Maggie, who's one and a half. They both love running around and playing together. Maggie just learned to walk, so she's falling. Sophie is already developing her summer legs with bruises and scrapes, and they're looking really great. But the thing they're most excited about right now is playing with our goats that we just got. I picked up two baby goats, they're half-brothers, and they're frolicking around in our yard. They're named Mr. Tumnus and Prince Caspian. I wanted to name one of them Leonardo DiCapricorn, but that was lost on my four-and-a-half-year-old. So they've been a lot of fun just to watch run around and play and wrestle, and so we're enjoying that homestead life. Ministry update, this semester, we welcomed many new students into our ministry. In the spring semester, we don't welcome a lot of freshmen. But what happens is we get people from other ministries who are burnt out. Because it's typical, often, unfortunately, in campus ministry to win people by making them feel significant, right? To say, come be part of our ministry. We need you. And our UF's message is, come be part of our ministry because you need Jesus. And freshmen want to feel significant. They want to feel purposeful. They want to feel included. And so they run to all these other places. But we get them back sophomore, junior year when they get burnt out because we offer the gospel. We offer them Jesus. We tell them that the gospel means you receive. from God, not that you bring, not that you work first, but that you receive and that we can rest in the goodness of grace. And we talked about that this semester, the first half of the semester, through a series on the life of the Apostle Paul. I really did a series on the order of salvation. But if I call a sermon series, The Order of Salvation, then college students won't come. So we did The Life of Paul and I snuck The Order of Seleucus in there. And then after spring break, we did a series on heaven. And I'm preaching one of the sermons from that series this morning. It's the second one from Psalm 84. so that you're where they were when they heard the sermon. The main thrust of the series was that we tend to think about heaven wrong. We tend to think about heaven as that place up in the sky where we go when we die if we're good enough. But I challenge my students, and I want to challenge you this morning, to think about heaven as where God dwells. Heaven is best thought of scripturally as God's space. And at the beginning of creation, God's space and our space were the same space. We were created, we lived in Eden where God walked. It was his presence there with us. But after the fall happened, those things that characterized our life in God's space were frustrated. Work produced thistles and thorns, frustration and futility. Relationships produced discord and disharmony. Most things are being redeemed in Christ. We can again work to the glory of God. We can repent and forgive one another in our relationships. But that Eden story, that initial view of what life in God's place looks like, sets in motion the story of the Bible. It gives us this driving narrative question. How are we going to get back into God's place? Or more appropriately, how is God at work bringing us back into his place? And so we'll look this morning at Psalm 84, and we'll do a little bit of Old Testament work, a little bit of New Testament work, but this, I want to be our anchor for us. So if you have a Bible, follow along as I read Psalm 84 for us. 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. 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 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 sun 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. Thanks be to God. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we're thankful for your word this morning, for the truth that it reveals about who you are and who we are and what you've done to bring us back to yourself. We pray that as we look at Psalm 84 and this theme of the dwelling place of God, this theme of the temple that pervades scripture, you would help us to long for that place. Do this, we pray, for we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. All right, so we just sang a version of Psalm 84 out of the Trinity hymnal. Does anyone remember the other version of Psalm 84 from the late 90s, early 2000s? Better is one day, right? Better is one day in your courts. How lovely is your dwelling place? It was one of these, like, That kind of first era where guitars were okay in church and it was one of those songs and it had that chorus that you could just sing over and over and over, right? You just get stuck singing of his love forever. When I sang that song, it was a staple of my high school youth group, when I sang that song, I primarily thought that it was about heaven. It was about that place out there where I go when I die. That it was about that longing to be forever with God, but that it didn't have much to do with here and now. That it didn't have much to do with my everyday life. I don't know who wrote the song or what their intentions were, but it's not just about heaven. The psalm, Psalm 84, is primarily about the temple. And you see this, particularly when you look closely at Psalm 84, that it's based on the temple. So, to understand the psalm, we need to ask first, what was the temple? And why is the psalmist so excited about it? Why does he think it's so beautiful? To do that, we need to rewind through our Old Testament a little bit. First, into the book of Exodus. You remember the book of Exodus. It starts in Egypt. Moses is brought up, raised up, flees to Midian, comes back to Egypt, brings the ten plagues. The people of Israel escape, and the armies of Egypt are defeated in the Red Sea. And they come to Mount Sinai, where Moses receives the Ten Commandments. We know the Ten Commandments. We're familiar with that part. But then comes Exodus 25. where read the Bible in a year programs go to die. Because in Exodus 25, you start to get blueprints. And it's tedious. And these blueprints, it's really repetitive as well. Because at first, God says, build a building like this. And then we get six or seven chapters of, and Moses built the building like this. And it's almost word for word repeated. You know that it's very important. But for us, it's very, very dry. And these instructions, these blueprints, are for a tent. for a transportable complex that would go with Israel as they journeyed from Mount Sinai to the Promised Land. This building, this tent, was called the Tabernacle. There's lots of aspects to the Tabernacle and it's very interesting to go in and look at the basin and look at the curtains and, you know, how many curtain rings are there supposed to be and what are they supposed to be made of. But the key feature of this building, the key feature of the Tabernacle, was this room in the middle, the Holy of Holies. It was the hot spot of God's presence. It's where the Ark of the Covenant was placed and was thought of as God's seat, his throne room as it were, his dwelling place. The big point of the tabernacle was that God traveled with his people. Yes, there were veils, there were rituals, there were restrictions, right? There's not that intimacy that you see in Eden where Adam and Eve walk with God in the cool of the day, but God is still with his people. He's traveling with his people. And in Exodus 40, after Moses builds the tabernacle, there's a glory cloud of God's presence that comes and it fills the tabernacle. God moves in, right? He says, I'm here, I'm with you, don't be afraid. And then for 40 years in the desert, God travels with his people. He leads them by that cloud in the daytime and a pillar of fire at night. And when God stopped, Israel would reconstruct the tabernacle, the glory cloud would redescend, and God would again dwell with his people. So he was leading them and he was dwelling with them. Then you get to the books of Joshua and Judges. I told you we were doing a little Old Testament survey this morning. You get to Joshua and Judges, and finally, after 40 years of wandering, the people get to the promised land. Joshua and Judges tell us about them conquering the land, retaking this land that God had given to Abraham for the Jewish people. But the theme of these books, by the end of these books, there's this desperate need and cry for permanence, for a king, one who rules all the time, not just when things are really bad. And so 1 Samuel tells the story of Saul's failed kingship. 2 Samuel tells the story of David's more successful kingship. But all through this time, God lives in a tent. Israel's getting established in the land. They're building homes. They're planting crops. They are settled. But God lives in a tent, this temporary structure. And in the book of 1 Kings, Solomon, David's son, is now king. And he oversees the construction of a temple. And it's huge, and it's beautiful, and it's sensory. Lots of cedar wood and other aromatic woods included in this. But listen to some of the description given in 1 Kings chapter 7 about this temple. He also made the ten stands of bronze. Each stand was four cubits long, four wide, and three cubits high. This was the construction of the stands. They had panels, and the panels were set in frames, and on the panels that were set in the frames were lions, oxen, and cherubim. On the frames, both above and below the lions and oxen, there were wreaths of beveled work. Moreover, each stand had four bronze wheels and axles of bronze, and at the four corners were supports for a basin. Their supports were cast with wreaths at the side of each. Its opening was within a crown that projected upward one cubit. Its opening was round as a pedestal is made, a cubit and a half deep. At its opening were carvings, and its panels were square, not round. The four wheels were underneath the panels. The axles of the wheels were of one piece with the stands, and the height of the wheel was a cubit and a half. The wheels were made like chariot wheels. Their axles, rims, spokes, and hubs were all cast. There were four supports at the four corners of each stand. The supports were of one piece with the stands. And on top of each stand, there was a round band half a cubit high. And on the top of the stand, it stays and panels were of one piece with it. And on the surface of its stays and on its panels he carved cherubim, lions, palm trees, according to the space of each, with wreaths all around. After this manner he made the ten stands. All of them were cast alike, all of the same measure and the same form." This kind of detail for just some stands for a water basin. But do you notice what's carved into it? Creatures, lions, angels, palm trees, and this kind of imagery goes all throughout the temple, this magnificent building that is built, and it's intentional. The design and the artwork in the temple is supposed, when you walk into it, to feel like a garden, to feel like Eden. It's a reminder that God's presence is still here with us. The big point is that God still dwelt with his people. He lived in the central room, the Holy of Holies, where his presence manifested in a powerful way. And at the dedication of that temple, just like in Exodus 40, a glory cloud descends and fills the room. This is the big point of this chapter in Israel's history, that God still dwells with his people. Yes, there's separation, right? Not just anybody can wander in to the Holy of Holies. There's ritual and there's sacrifice, there's atonement that's required to come into that presence. But right at the heart of Israel's life, right in the middle of their capital city is this reminder of Eden. That's why the temple is so important. It's where you went to meet God. And that's what the psalmist is talking about in Psalm 84. Let's look back at the psalm for a minute. In verses one and two, he talks about how beautiful the temple is, how much he longs for it. 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. It's not just beautiful, right? He says how lovely is your dwelling place, but more than that, he longs for it. He needs it. He faints for lack of it. And this temple, this worship that he comes to involves all of him, this longing that he has for the presence of God, soul, heart, flesh. He's not just going through the motions, he's desperate. Do you feel your need for the presence of God like this? Is it a priority for you? Or is it something that you'll do if nothing else gets in your way? There's a good chance that I'm speaking to the choir here because you're all here, gathered in the presence of God on Sunday morning, so obviously you consider it somewhat of a priority. But how easy is it for you to get knocked off of that priority? How inconvenient does your week have to be to say, we just need to rest on Sunday morning, we just need to stay home? What commitments of your children's soccer teams or traveling choirs or other things take precedence over presence with the people of God? Do you long for the presence of God like the psalmist does? In verse 3 and 4, he talks about the joy he finds there. He says, even the sparrow finds a home, 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. He marvels at how even birds find shelter in the presence of God. They literally build nests up in the rafters of the temple. Right, creation is blessed by the temple and creation is welcome into the temple. Again, it's supposed to be eaten and it's filled not just with pictures of animals, but literal animals that nest in the rafters, that the presence of God blesses not just humanity, but all who are near. Verses 5-7 need a little bit of explanation for us. Verses 5-7 say this, 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. First, Zion. What does this word mean? The temple that the author is talking about, that Solomon built, is located in Jerusalem, the capital city of Israel. But sometimes, in the Bible, Jerusalem is called Zion. And it's not a nickname, right? Like New York is the Big Apple, like Raleigh is the City of Oaks, or New Orleans is the Big Easy. No, Zion emphasizes a certain aspect of Jerusalem, the heavenly aspect. So whenever Old Testament authors want to talk about the human aspect of Jerusalem, right, calling to repentance, calling out sin, emphasizing the king or social issues, he talks about Jerusalem. But when they want to talk about the divine aspect, the heavenly aspect, the presence of the temple, the hope of God's people, they talk about Zion. So it's still Jerusalem, but it's emphasizing the heavenly aspect of this city, most importantly, again, the temple, the presence of God. So verse 5, blessed are those in whose heart are the highways to Zion, is saying that those who are familiar with the presence of God, who take this journey, who know where to find him, those are the ones who are happy and satisfied. Those are the ones who are blessed. But he also talks about this valley of Baca. Baca is not a common word in our Old Testament. We're not 100% sure what it means or refers to, but it's most likely a word that denotes a Middle Eastern tree or shrub that grows best in dry places. So a tree or shrub that grows best in dry places. So the Valley of Baca is a valley that's filled with these trees and shrubs that dry best in dry places because the valley is dry. So the Valley of Baca is a place through which some would have to travel to get to Jerusalem, to get to Zion. That's a difficult part of the journey. There's an arid valley, one that didn't get much water. But he says in verse six, as they go through the Valley of Baca, this place of dryness and trouble and difficulty, they make it a place of springs. The early rain also covers it with pools. Even though this journey to the place of worship to the temple takes them through this dry valley, because of where they're going, it becomes to them a place of springs, a place of refreshment. The psalmist isn't saying that literally, as Christians walk on their way to church, stoplights magically turn green at their approach. He's saying that whatever derails us from worship, whatever stands in our way, because of where we're going, It's as if it's a valley of spring. What is it that keeps you from worship? Is it sin? Are you going through some struggle or addiction or just laziness? I just don't feel like I'm allowed to worship because of who I am. Does difficulty keep you from worship? Some hardship in your life that makes you just feel like you're not in the mood to worship God. Some busyness. Too much going on in my life. I just don't feel like I have the time to worship. But listen again to verse six. As they go through the valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs. The early rain also covers it with pools. He's not saying our troubles and difficulties magically disappear when we're headed to worship, but that those things that seem like hindrances, those things that seem too difficult to overcome, are meant to drive us to worship. And anything that drives us to worship, that spurs us on our journey to the presence of God, is a blessing. I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages. So that difficulty in your life, bring it to God. That sin coming to worship will help you to cast it away. That busyness, come to him, rest. and have him reorder your priorities. That's what verses eight and nine call us to do, is to pray, to bring all of these things to God in prayer. O Lord of God of hosts, hear my prayer. Give ear, O God of Jacob. Behold our shield, O God. Look on the face of your anointed. Pray in the confidence that God hears and is strong and will answer. Verse 11 gives the reasoning behind all of this. Here's why the psalmist longs for the presence of God in the temple. The Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. One commentator said this, why should a Christian fear darkness when he has such a sun to guide him? Or dread dangers when he has such a shield to guard him? When we worship, we come into the presence of God, who is our light and is our life. And he gives guidance and protection. He reveals and he defends. So again, what derails you from worship? What keeps you away? Difficulty? Come to the one who is your shield. Sin? Stop hiding and come to the one who can expose your sin, expose your heart, deal with your sin, first with forgiveness, and then by making you new. Is it busyness? Let him shine the light of his truth into your life, that your priorities and pursuits might be ordered rightly. This is how the psalmist invites us to see the temple, the presence of God. He invites us to rest, to come even though we may face difficulty. He calls us to long for it, to cry out for it, to be desperate for us. And he calls us to the temple to meet the God who is our sun and shield. but we don't have a temple anymore. How are we to understand this Psalm on this side of the cross, right? We don't travel to Jerusalem. We don't go to Zion to go to the temple. What on earth does Psalm 84 have to do with us? Where is the temple now? A little more of Israel's history. In 586, the temple was destroyed. The Babylonians came in and tore down the temple in poetic language so that no stone was left on another. The Book of Lamentations is Jeremiah's song of grief about the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and Solomon's temple. Later on in Israel's history, about 70 years later, some people return to Jerusalem. They rebuild the city, which you can read about in the book of Nehemiah. They rebuild the temple that you can read about in the book of Ezra. But it's not what it was. You read about the dedication of this new temple that they build, and all the young men are really excited, you know, like, We're going to make Israel great again. We're back. We're going to do all the things. And all the old men weep because they remember the temple that was. And what's here is just a shadow. The foundations are small. It's not going to be expansive. It's not going to be as glorious. And there's no glory cloud that fills this temple. And it seems like God no longer dwells with his people. Well, 500 later, Jesus shows up. And what he does in his ministry is he starts talking about himself in terms of the temple. You remember in John, I believe it's chapter 2, where he goes into the temple and he cleanses it, right? He kicks out the money changers and the livestock auction that's going on in the temple. This is a new temple that Herod has built. He goes in and he kicks them out. And the Pharisees get all hot under the collar, and they say, like, who are you to do this thing? And Jesus says to them, tear this temple down, and I will rebuild it in three days. And they think he's talking about the building, but he's talking about himself. And as Jesus goes on, he continues to talk about himself in terms of sacrifice, and in terms of representation of God, and in terms of priestly things. Basically, Jesus is saying that everything the temple did for you, you find in me. The presence of God is no longer a place, it's a person. It's the person of Jesus who is everything that the temple was for. It's the presence of God, Emmanuel, God with us, coming, walking around with us, interacting with us, touching us, dying for us, sacrificing for us. When we come to Christ, we come to the presence of God. And after he lives and dies and rises from the dead and ascends to heaven, he sends the Holy Spirit, God himself, to live in our hearts. So, in a sense, we carry the presence of God wherever we go because we're indwelt by the Holy Spirit. But there's a twist, because you'd expect the authors of the New Testament to say something like, well, since you have the Holy Spirit, since you have the presence of God in you, you don't need to gather with God's people. You don't need to do anything else to worship, because God dwells within you. You often hear people talk like this today. I worship God just as well by going on a hike, or by fishing, or by taking a nap, as I do in church. In a sense, that's right, all of our life is worship, but the New Testament, Jesus says things like, where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. The New Testament, by and large, is written not to individuals, but to churches. The New Testament assumes that we're part of a body of Christ, and here's why. Paul says this in Ephesians chapter 2. After he's talked about our individual salvation and after he's talked about reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles, he says this, So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Paul says the presence of God used to be a building, then it was a person, Jesus, but now it's a people. that we together, you together, are being built into a dwelling place for God. You're growing into a holy temple in the Lord. And that means Psalm 84 is about you. How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord God Almighty? That person next to you who sings a little bit off key, right? That person who like their kid just won't stop smacking their bubble gum or like whatever it is about the people in this room that annoy you, God through the psalmist says that you are lovely. and the psalmist soul longs and faints to be with you. Do you see one another like that? Do you know that God sees you like that? Because what happens when we realize that, what happens when we realize that God finds us lovely is that we are free to love him, not out of fear, not out of trying to get things from him, but out of great gratitude. God finds you beautiful because you're his dwelling place. you in community with other believers. And what you find in that community of believers, when we're patient and persistent with one another, when we're humble, when we're present, when we're open and honest, when our interactions are characterized by repentance and forgiveness. In other words, when we live in love, you find that you start to feel home. You start to feel like this is what you're made for. Right, that this community that worships God together. Because all of these things are impossible without our worship. There are plenty of communities out there that are welcoming communities. But when you add worship in, worship that looks at a God who looks at us and smiles, that actually makes us able to do things for him, to do things for one another. In the movie Toy Story, there's this character that's introduced, right? Andy is the little boy and he's got all his toys. He's got Woody, he's got Ham, he's got Rex the dinosaur, and then he gets a flashy new toy. Buzz Lightyear shows up. And Buzz Lightyear is proud and arrogant, and all of these other toys are beneath him. But over the course of the movie, what he comes to find out is that he's not the real Buzz Lightyear. He's just an action figure. He's just an image, and there's this scene where they're in the toy store, and he looks up at the wall, and there's just hundreds of Buzz Lightyears, and he's crushed. But what he realizes is he's loved. He's loved by Andy, right, who writes his name on his boot. He's loved by these other toys who don't care that he's delusional, who don't care that he's not the real Buzz Lightyear. He's loved and so he's lovely. And that's what happens to us when we realize that we are loved by God, that he finds us beautiful, we become lovely. because we know we're already welcomed and we're free to extend that welcome to others. And all this comes from Jesus Christ, who is our temple, who is the presence of God come to us, who when we come to him, we find that forgiveness, we find that atonement, we find that redemption, we find heaven on earth. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we're thankful for worship. We're thankful for the temple and the image that it gives us of the grandeur of your presence, the intimacy of your presence. We're thankful for Christ, who brings us the humanity of your presence, and who actually makes the temple work. Father, who sacrifices himself on the altar for us. And in so doing, opens up the temple, that curtain in the Holy of Holies that rips in half and brings us into the presence of God. And Father, we are floored that you look at us that way. That you're building us into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. That Psalm 84, how could that be about me? How could that be about us? Father, you are so good to us, to call us lovely, to call us delusional, prideful action figures, something beautiful. Father, we pray that you would let that sink into our hearts, let that change us, and help us to worship you. Do this, we pray, for we ask it in Christ's name. Amen.