So we are continuing in our series of Psalms. Not sure, again, how far we'll go with this. We might go to Psalm 89. That would be the end of Book 3. But for now, we find ourselves in Psalm 84. That should be on page 583, I think, of your Pew Bibles. And I would urge you to use those or your own copy of the scriptures in order to follow along and keep those in front of you as we work through it this morning. If you're able, would you stand with me as I read all 12 verses of this 84th Psalm as the text for our sermon this morning? 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 to 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, Selah. 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. 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, 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 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 God. May he bless it to our hearts this morning. Please be seated. So this week we are to be instructed from Psalm 84. Last week we concluded the Psalms of Asaph. We finished those and today we begin, you might think of it as a cluster of Psalms that are attributed to the sons of Korah. You might wonder who this Korah is that these people are identified as the sons of. The best we can tell is that Korah seems to be the Levite who, back in Numbers chapter 16, rebelled against the authority of Moses, challenged him, does God only lead and speak through you? And as a result of that, God caused him to be, and those with him, to be swallowed up by the earth itself to quell the rebellion. Because you see, the rebellion wasn't against Moses, it was against the Lord who had appointed Moses as the leader of his people. However, it seems that not all of his family joined him in this wicked rebellion and that God graciously allowed many of his descendants to continue to serve him faithfully in the tabernacle and later in the temple. These Psalms of the sons of Korah, even though they are still part of book three of the Psalter, which that book again, reminding you, is just a book that in general is focused on the oppression of God's people and even the desolation that's being caused to them by foreign enemies. Even though these Psalms are part of that book three, You will hear, I believe, as we've read through and worked through this, that these Psalms by the sons of Korah tend to have a bit more of a positive perspective on their approach to God and these things. But don't ever forget that that situation of oppression and desolation is still in the background of the Psalms. Now the word blessed appears three times in this Psalm. That word means those who are fortunate, those who are happy, those who are receiving good fortune from God. It occurs three times in his psalm, and I intend to use those three occurrences to mark out three separate themes I believe the psalmist has focused on in this psalm for our instruction. In verses one to four, we're going to look at a blessed longing to dwell with God. In verses 5 through 8, we're going to consider a blessed journey into his presence. And finally, in verses 9 through 12, we will consider a blessed fulfillment by faith. So first of all, a blessed longing to dwell with God. In verse 1, and actually I say in verse 1, but actually it is throughout the entire psalm, from beginning literally, first verse to end, twelfth verse, and also you find in verses 3 and 8 in between, that the psalmist directs his praise and his prayer to, you won't see it in your text this way, but Yahweh Sabaoth, to the Lord of hosts. Yahweh, again, is that covenant name of God. It is his personal name that he gave to Moses to tell the people who it was that was sending him to deliver them. The phrase there, the Lord of Hosts, though, is more than just a mere title for God. It is what we might consider today a loaded phrase. You see, the word host here is generally translated in some ways as armies. It's the idea of someone who is the one who commands great and huge forces for conquering and for being in control and power. In terms of God, it is used to speak of him as the one who is in command and charge of not just human armies, although that is often and always true, but also the angelic hosts, numberless. are the hosts that he is the Lord of. You see, this phrase declares that Yahweh has all sovereign power over all creation, that he is Almighty God, the Lord of hosts. Hermann Bavink said that the Lord of hosts is, quote, king in the fullness of his glory, who's surrounded by regimented hosts of angels, governs the whole world, as the Almighty, and in his temple, receives the honor and acclamation of his creatures. That's who the psalmist is crying out to all throughout this psalm. And again, the Lord of Hosts, the one in complete control, but don't forget the context of Book 3. Even while his people are facing opposition, oppression, and even destruction and desolation, he is the Lord of Hosts. Notice that the psalmist begins this psalm by crying out, how lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts. Now the word lovely there is maybe not the best exact translation. The idea here isn't so much that it is a dwelling place that is beautiful to look at, although that would have been in their day true of both the tabernacle and the temple. The word that's translated lovely here by the ESV actually tends to mean more directly, and particularly in this context, greatly loved, beloved. How dear to me, how beloved to me is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts, is what the writer of this psalm is actually declaring in this first verse. My soul, he says, and by that he means my entire being deeply longs for it, craves it, it strongly desires, and yes, in my deep longing for it, my soul, my being, even begins to feel weak and faint for the courts of the Lord. Kibner and other commentators, when they look at this language in this verse, Make note of the fact that this is the language of love. This is poetic love language, like you would find in the Song of Solomon, for instance. This is strong, intense, passionate language the psalmist is using to describe, again, that when it says this longing, it's a craving that he is describing, not in a negative sense, but in a positive sense. What is provoking in him such a strong passion, desire, longing, and love? Is it simply the building and the beauty of the tabernacle or temple that he is planning to visit and come to? No, it isn't that at all. If you really look at verse one, he gives us a hint of what it is that he's really focused on, even in that verse, where we notice he didn't say that God's temple was beloved of him. Even though it is and was, he called the temple or tabernacle God's dwelling place. See, it's greatly loved. Why? Because God dwells there. Because that's where he is going to find and meet with Lord of hosts. He gets really explicit about that in verse 2 when he says, my heart and my flesh, in other words, my whole entire being, the ESV translates it, sing for joy. It probably is more like cries out to and for the living God. Notice, not just Lord of hosts, not just God, but he is the living God. He isn't just a mere concept or idea that helps the psalmist feel better. He also isn't one of those stone, metal, or wood idols that people make themselves and then bow down in front of and treat them as if they're gods. He is the living God, not just the Almighty, but he's alive. He is the living God, and he longs, he desires, he loves to be in God's presence. Now as he stresses this great desire of his to be with God in his house, The psalmist, and remember, the psalmist is the son of Korah. As a son of Korah, he's one of the Levites whose role, responsibilities, would have been to serve in some capacity within the tabernacle or temple. Some were gatekeepers, some were singers and musicians. They had different roles, but he would have been one who, at least at particular times, would have had an opportunity to serve in the temple itself. And as he's expressing this great desire of his to be with God in his house, he seems to remember how as he was in the temple courts, he noticed that there were just these little birds that were flitting around, sparrows, swallows, flying back and forth within the open courtyards of the temple. And he also recalls that they weren't just flitting around and then leaving. Those birds had actually built nests in the ease of the overhanging architecture of the temple, and they were raising their young right in the vicinity and locale of God's sacred altars. In other words, the birds were finding refuge in God's house just as he desired to. Notice as he speaks about this, as his soul is crying out, the Lord of hosts is now not just the Lord of hosts, but he is my king and my God. You see, he belongs to God and God belongs to him. They belong together. And in verse four, he seems to not only remember the birds that lived in the house of the Lord, but he also seems now to be thinking about his fellow Levites and priests who served the Lord in the temple. This is the first use in this psalm of that word blessed. Fortunate, happy are those who do what? Who dwell in your house. Doing what? Ever singing your praise. Just like those birds would have been singing as they flitted around and sat on their nests, so the people who had the privilege and joy of always being in the temple and serving God, and doing that often by singing their praises, the psalmist looks at them and says, wow, those are the people who are really blessed. Always in the Lord's house, always singing his praise. And he again applies that word, that word Selah here, that idea to pause here for a significant reflection on just how important that is to him and to us as we hear it from him. And so as we reflect on that, we should be thinking, do these verses in any way describe your and our hearts as we prepare to come before God and worship on a morning like this? Are we looking forward with anticipation and delight to coming before our God and coming to meet with Him? Will our hearts be internally and externally singing praises to Him and delighting in that? See, the psalm isn't just history for Israel. It's calling for a response from our hearts as well. And this brings us then to the next section of verses where we're going to look at the blessed journey into God's presence. He's talked about how much he desires to be there. And understand that in Old Testament Israel, God's house, his dwelling place, the temple, as the final most concrete expression of that, was in his city of Jerusalem on his Mount Zion. According to God's requirement, it wasn't enough for the average Israelite living wherever he did in that nation of Israel to just decide to go and sit in his house or sit out in his field or out in the forest and to think positive worshipful thoughts about God, like so many think is okay to do today. No, actually God commanded them to come into his direct presence where he dwelt. He commanded them, for wherever they were, to come to Jerusalem for at least three of the major feasts in order to present themselves before him and offer their worship directly to and before him. And understand that just as they were coming from every far-flung place all around that nation of Israel, There would have been paths, roads, highways, as we think of them, that they would have necessarily taken in order to reach Jerusalem. Those roads or highways were referred to sometimes as the highways to Zion. Now surely as these people were preparing to take one of these pilgrimages to the temple from wherever they were in Israel, they would have reminded themselves about those highways and which highways they had to take. Much as we do when we're going to take a very important vacation and we don't just get in the car and take off, but we sit down to look at the map and think about which roads we have to go on. We don't want to make a wrong turn and end up somewhere completely different and be lost. These people certainly would have been focused on that. But knowing what people are like in general, and especially, particularly knowing what the Old Testament Israelites were, for the most part, like toward God. Do you remember how God complains against them often? You honor me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me. Why are you not reverencing me? Why are you stiff-necked? Why are you worshiping other gods? Knowing that those kind of things are true, it is possible that some, if not many, made these journeys on the highways to Zion grudgingly, out of a sense of necessity, out of a sense of obligation. Well, God said, I have to do it. I can't not do it because everybody else is going to look at me like I'm kind of a Gentile or pagan or something. So you've got to do what you've got to do. You see, their hearts wouldn't have really been in it. Perhaps they resented the time it required of them to be away from their homes, away from their work where they could make money for themselves and their family, away from their sources of entertainment. Perhaps they also resented some of the very difficult parts of the trip, which the song gets into in the middle of it, and maybe even resented the risk and danger it might present at times. And in fact, For some, perhaps many of them, they couldn't really wait for it to be over so they could be back home and focusing on what they thought was really important. See, if you look at the book of Amos, chapter 8, verses 5 and 6, those are exactly the kind of people God is describing to the prophet Amos when he is announcing through Amos that I'm going to bring judgment on this people. Why? Because they can't wait to get the Sabbath done with and get my worship behind them so they can go back to making money. doing the things they really want to do. Think about the comparison with that attitude and put it alongside of the attitude of the writer of this psalm who craves and longs and desires to be in God's courts and to dwell there forever. See this is where the psalmist uses that word blessed, fortunate, happy again. Blessed are those who remember and rejoice that the God that they are going to meet with is the Almighty God, the Lord of hosts. Blessed are those who find their strength in his strength. And notice what he says, in whose hearts are the roads or highways to Zion. What does he mean by that? I thought the roads were physical things out there that they walked on or rode on in order to get to Jerusalem. Well, that's true. But that's not what should be leading them to Jerusalem. The physical road shouldn't be. It should be the desire for God that the psalmist has that is the spiritual road to Zion in his heart. You see, the idea here is that going to meet with God in his house is something that his true people will love and they will look forward to. It won't be a burden to them. It will be a blessing to them. Once again, Kidner says that the way to God should be a way that is well used in our hearts. It shouldn't be one we have to get out the Rand McNally Road Atlas and look up how to find him. We should have that path so well worn that we fall onto it just by habit. In fact, those who have the roads to Zion in their hearts, as the psalmist says, are in fact already well on the highway to Zion before they ever set their foot, or for us, our cars, on the road to worship and meeting with God. Now he talks here about the Valley of Baca. Again, this is an interesting reference because nobody has any idea of exactly what or where the Valley of Baca was. They don't have any place that went by that specific name. In fact, not entirely clear about what the word Baca means. One word very close to that means weeping. Another word seems to point to trees that might thrive in a drier climate. And so there's a little bit of uncertainty about where this would have been. But it seems like in the psalmist's intent in this psalm, he isn't trying to tell us necessarily about, you know, that valley north of wherever and west of this place that we all have to walk through, there's such an awful place. He seems to be using the Valley of Baca as a reference to a place when you're on this journey to meet with God, that it isn't always ease and joy and rest, an area of difficulty, of adversity. The context in the Psalms suggests that this valley is perhaps a valley of great dryness. Notice how these ones who go through the valley of Baca, who are trusting in the Lord and their hearts are directed toward him, the road to Zion is in their hearts, they make this place a place of springs. It apparently needs water. And as these people travel through it, they make it a place of springs. Notice they aren't digging wells as they go through this valley. That's not what he means. What he means is, even though this is a dry place that is difficult for them, because it's part of the path that takes them to God, when they go through that valley, they go through it with joy that they're getting closer to him. And because of that, they don't see it as a dry valley. They see it as a place that is bringing springs of God's blessing to them in one way or another. God helps them through the dry places and the adverse times. They rely on his strength. They go from strength to strength, not their own, but the strength of the almighty Lord of hosts. And also in the sense of blessing and favor from God, notice how it points to the future. As they persist in their perseverance in going to meet with God, they look forward to the future promise of God's further blessings, the early rains that would come and create pools in this dry place, pools that would provide water for irrigation to allow growth and crops and life to continue. You see, they have confidence because they are showing faithfulness to the God who is faithful to them, that they will receive his blessings. And again, this is another place where this psalm speaks directly to us. We get in our valleys of Baca, those places where we either find it to be places of weeping or places of dryness, and we get there and we get upset with God. Why is God failing me? Why isn't God taking care of me? Why doesn't God look at me and see where I'm at? Why is he sending all these hard things to me instead of looking at it saying, here I am in a place that I would rather not be and yet God is with me and he's carrying me through it and he is providing what I need and I am glad that this place is going to be part of what takes me to him. You see, it should be our response to adverse circumstances on our journey to be with God as well. I mentioned this idea of going from strength to strength. As they are going in these difficulties and through these difficulties and this journey as a whole, they're drawing nearer to God. Rather than fainting and giving up when they hit these dry places, These pilgrims on their journey instead draw encouragement and go from strength to strength. They realize it may be a tough place, but when I get through this, I'm that much closer to being in his house. You see, this psalm is obviously about a person, maybe even about a people who have great love for God, Yahweh, the Lord of hosts, who have great trust in Him. Even that trust, that faith they have, it's not as explicitly stated in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament we see clearly that even that faith is a gift from God. It's not something we have in and of ourselves. And because of that faith, they are carried through those difficult times that look like they might have to give up. And they even in those places recognize God's faithfulness to them, which is what is implicated by that making springs in a dry place. They draw their strength from the Lord of hosts, and as a result, the psalmist says, they all eventually end up appearing before God at Mount Zion and In that word that is used there, it also implies that as they appear before God, God also appears to them in the worship. God presents himself to them. Now we see that this middle section is ended by the psalmist with an earnest plea. Notice it's not only to the Lord God of hosts, a very full title now, But he also adds another title to that. Not just the all-powerful Lord God of hosts, but he is also the God of Jacob. Again, Jacob doesn't mean the man. Jacob means the descendants of Jacob. Israel, God's people. You're not just the almighty Lord of hosts, but you're also the God of your people as we come to you and come before you. Hear and respond to our cry, O God. And so that brings us now to looking at the blessed fulfillment by faith, the final verses. What is this prayer, this cry, that the psalmist so desires Almighty God, the God of his people, to hear and respond to? Well, if you look at verse 9, verse 9 seems to be a prayer for the king of the people of Israel. The word used first is a shield. A shield is a symbol of defense, right? It's what you use to block the blows of the enemy and keep him from hurting you. The king is described here as their shield. And it's a good description because one of the main purposes for which God gave them a king was so that he would protect them from their enemies, from those that would harm them. And so in that sense, he is their shield. He also calls him the Anointed One. And again, in the Old Testament, kings, priests, and prophets all were anointed as they were installed into their respective offices. And that anointing was a way to symbolize God's calling upon them to that office, but also to symbolize God's blessing upon them as he called them and placed them into those specific responsibilities. calling them for service to him and service to his people. And so the psalmist here now calls on God, notice, to behold, take note of, pay attention to the king. And then he asked him to look upon, not just behold, but look upon your anointed. That phrase to look upon means not just to see, but to look upon him with favor, sort of like the Aaronic blessing that we use so often at the end of our services. Let your face shine upon us and be gracious to us. Here's the king. Take note of him. He's our shield. He's your anointed. Look on him with your favor. Perhaps the king was taking a prominent role in leading the people into the worship. And that's what leads the psalmist at this point to say, behold the king, our shield, look with favor on him. It's also true though that the Old Testament, God is very clear throughout it that there is a phrase that generally applies, a proverbial kind of phrase, that as goes the king, so go the people. And the kings of Israel, for the most part, were wicked kings who led the people into wickedness. And very occasionally, when a righteous king would come along, he would lead them into reforms and into casting off wickedness and faithfulness and obedience to God. And that's why the psalmist is crying out, God, look with favor on him. Keep him faithful to you for our sake. Let him be our shield. As goes the king, so go the people. Now, clearly, even when we reach this place where there's this talk about the king, the psalmist's focus, his longing, his craving, his desire is still to be blessed by being in God's presence, in God's house. Notice the for, which means because, that begins verse 10. Pay special attention, show favor to the king for, A single day, just one day, in your courts is better than a thousand days anywhere else. Anywhere else. And then he goes on to talk about, I would rather be, again, ESV translate this as a doorkeeper. There was an office, in fact, some of the Levites held this, of being a doorkeeper or gatekeeper who let people in or kept people out. That doesn't really seem to be the meaning, though, that the psalmist really has here. It really seems to be that what he is saying is, even if I can only, when I get to your house, even if I can only just stand in the doorway, if I can just stand on the threshold of the door, that's all the further I can get, I would rather be there than to, notice what he says, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. What was the first verse focused on? The place where God dwells. What's the intent of the psalmist in the meantime? It's really blessed to be able to want to be one of those who dwell with God in his house. And now what he says is, if I can even, I don't have to be right up by your altars like those birds are, Lord. If I can just stand in the doorway, on the threshold, I would rather be there than dwell in the tents of wickedness. See, he says that the reason for that, the reason he feels that way, the reason he's so confident that that's the right way to feel is because Yahweh God, the Lord God, is a son. This is the only time in the Old Testament, by the way, as far as I know, that God is called a son, S-U-N. But what does the sun represent, especially to this people who live in such an agrarian culture? The sun represents life. It represents provision. Without the sun, there would be no crops, there would be no food, there would be no warmth. The sun represents provision and life, and God also, notice now, is a shield, just like their king. And again, shield is protection. It is better for me to just stand in the doorway than to dwell in those tents of wickedness because God is the one who provides and protects his people. And if I dwell out there, guess what? They don't provide or protect at all. See, the wicked and the wickedness of the world have no true favor or honor, no true grace or glory to offer to anyone. The psalmist is recognizing that. Only Yahweh, the covenant God, bestows favor and honor or grace and glory. There are no good things that God's people need that they need to go and look for in the tents of wickedness. Do you understand that's what the psalmist is saying? There's nothing I need out there. Everything I need is in your house. That's why I'd rather just stand at the door than dwell over there. I don't have to go look for anything I need there. And why do I not need to do that? Notice what he says, because God does not withhold any good thing from those that walk uprightly. from those who trust in him and devote themselves to him. God doesn't withhold any good thing from those people. Now, don't misunderstand that. God does withhold things from his people. He doesn't withhold any good thing from his people. And I can know there are people right now in this congregation who are saying, well, I would beg to differ with that. As I prepared this sermon, I'm saying that in my own heart. Because we certainly found things not given to us that we thought would have been wonderfully good. But you see, the point here is God's perspective and not ours. For whatever reason, God knows what is good for us. And even though it hurts like mad sometimes, he will not withhold. any good thing from his children, and something that you might think is going to be good for you that seems like it would have to be good for you, he will determine is not, and he will withhold it because you're his child. Do you know what helps us with that? The only thing that helps us with that? One of the themes of this psalm, trust, faith in God. We have to know who he is, and we have to believe that what he says about him here is true. He will not withhold any good thing from you. And so we have to trust that if we don't get something that seems good, it's because that thing at that point in our lives somehow would not have been. At any rate, The psalmist here cries out, O Lord of hosts, and this is the last use of that word blessed, O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who does what? Trusts in you. Happy, fortunate is the one who trusts in you. Once again, I think we should pause here. We should be stopping here and reflecting on this and trying to think, does this describe us? Are we people who trust God enough that even in those places where we feel like that may not be true, that we can still cling to him and say, blessed is the one who trusts in you, fortunate, happy. Do we eagerly anticipate worship as a means of meeting with God? Remember, in the Old Testament, the tabernacle and temple were the place where God's people went to meet with God. It was where God dwelled here on earth. What is the place where God dwells here on earth now? It's us. We're the temple. That's what Peter and Paul tell us in the New Testament. We are living stones being built up into a spiritual temple, a place where sacrifices will be made to God and praises will be lifted to him for all eternity. We're the temple because who is the temple? Jesus Christ is the true temple. He's the place where God really dwells among us, right? He is Emmanuel, God with us. And because we're found in Him and united to Him, we are part of that temple now. We're actually part of God's house where He dwells. You see, as the end of this psalm makes clear to us, although this psalm talks a lot about a journey, a pilgrimage to dwell in God's house with Him, it isn't most truly, and a lot of commentators recognize this, not most truly a psalm of pilgrimage. It's most truly a psalm of trust and faith in God. A trust and faith in Him that is fueled by an earnest and passionate love for God, with our whole being crying out to be in His blessed presence. Again, go back to those small birds the psalm focuses on near the beginning of this psalm. Those small birds, insignificant creatures that they are, They have enough sense, if you will, to trust God and live in his house and to raise their young there. Why is it that we, the creatures that were made in his image, are so little inclined to follow their example and want to be near God and dwell in his house and raise our young in him and with him? You see, Jesus also made a very similar point about devoting ourselves to God, trusting in him for everything that we need. Back in Matthew chapter six, verse 26, and Matthew chapter 10, verses 29 to 33, when he talked about God provides for the sparrows and the birds, they don't go out and grow crops. They don't go out and worry about spinning things. God takes care of them. Are you not more valuable to him than they are? Jesus says. You see the Bible is a unity. It tells the same message beginning to end, and here's the psalmist giving the same message in a sermon that Jesus is going to give later on as he walks this earth. See for us today this psalm is very useful for real Christians, and by that I mean not people who just say they're Christian, but people who really have trusted in Christ. It's useful for us to remind us that our love for the God who saved us and who is our provider and protector cannot be half-hearted and fickle. We owe God a strong, a passionate love with all of our being. Isn't that what the first great commandment requires of us? You shall love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Now, I'm honest with you, that is not where my heart is a lot of the time. We should repent of that. We should pray that God will drive and fuel that love in us more and more every day. This psalm also, though, helps to remind us and to remember that what it is we were created for and what we are being recreated into. Remember that in the Garden of Eden, Adam dwelled in God's house. Eden was a sanctuary. It was essentially a temple where God came and walked with man and talked with him. Fellowship. And God didn't withhold any good thing from Adam. The problem is that when Satan came into the garden, he talked to Adam and he convinced him through his wife that God actually had withhold something good from you. There is something good. That tree right over there is good for you, and God won't let you have it just because he's spiteful. It's good, and he won't let you have it. And at that point, Adam allowed Satan to convince him that God was stingy. And he went, instead of dwelling in the house of the Lord, he went to dwell in the tents of wickedness and took us all with him. You see, even after that, even after that, by the guy who was in the most perfect place ever to obey God, you know what God's response was to that? He went on to prove that he would not withhold any good thing from us. He promised a gift that he would give in Genesis 3.15, and then he went on in the Gospels to literally bring that gift, and that gift would be his own son. We spoke about it in our assurance of salvation and forgiveness this morning. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son. That son was also his king and his anointed one, right? That's what Psalm 2 tells us. My son, the king I've set on Mount Zion, my anointed one, it is Jesus Christ. the one who was given to save us and to bring us back to God, to reconcile us to him. Paul rejoiced in this truth, actually, in Romans chapter eight, verse 32. He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, Paul said, how will he not also with him, in him, through him, graciously give us what? All things. He won't withhold any good. from his people. And you see our only way and hope to be saved was that God would fulfill the prayer of verse 9 in this psalm. That when that son and king and shield came and offered himself for our sin in our place that God would behold him and would look on him with favor. And that's what the resurrection is. God looking on his son with favor and blessing. And so he atoned for our sins and he restored us once again into God's gracious presence. You see, Jesus is leading us on our journey, our pilgrimage from sin and despair to the blessedness of living forever in God's presence. Pay attention to this. He walks with us, not just in the Valley of Baca. Tears or dryness. What does Psalm 23 tell us? Even if I walk in the valley of the shadow of death itself, you're with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. And in fact, he is God's goodness and mercy that pursues us all the days of our lives so that we can do what? Dwell in the house of the Lord forever. In John 14, the first three verses, when he is preparing his disciples for his departing from this world and returning to his Father in heaven, he called on them and us to trust God, trust the Father, and trust in me. In my Father's house there are what? Many rooms or mansions. There's lots of place. I wouldn't have told you I'm going to prepare a place for you in my Father's house if I weren't doing it. And I will come back and take you to be with me so you can be where I am in my Father's house. Forever. So when and how does that get fulfilled? Well, I've included in your bulletin two passages from Revelation, 21, 1-4, and 22, 1-5. This is the culmination of our journey to dwell in God's house. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, what? Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Neither shall be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away." You can read the second one from chapter 22. I'll just focus on the fourth verse. Notice what it says in that fourth verse, and they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. They'll belong to him. They will meet with him in worship as he dwells with them in his house forever. That will be us as we walk faithfully with him. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your goodness and mercy that have pursued us all the days of our lives in your son, Christ Jesus. Thank you for the salvation that is ours in him. Thank you for the privilege of being able to know that we will dwell in your house forever. Forgive us for not cherishing and craving that. Fire up that desire in our hearts. Make it the focus of our whole being as it was for the psalmist in this psalm. We pray these things in Christ's name and for His sake, Amen.