February 2, 2025

Ephesians 5:31-32 - Pastor David Deutsch

February 2, 2025

Summary

Pastor David Deutsch preaches out of Ephesians 5:31-32. In this sermon, Pastor David unpacks that marriage is a sacred reflection of Christ and the church, designed to tell His story rather than just fulfill personal desires. Through seasons of joy and hardship, its purpose remains the same—to display Christ’s love, requiring sacrifice, grace, and a commitment to forgiveness.

Transcript

Open your Bibles this morning to the book of Ephesians. You'll know why we're taking a little bit of a side trek in just a moment. Ephesians chapter five for this one sermon, I'm gonna read verses 31 and 32 before I pray. Ephesians five verses 31 and 32, hear the word of God. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound that I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. This is the word of the Lord. Our God in heaven as we come to your word today, we pray that you would teach us, that you would take hearts of stone and make them hearts of flesh and that you would accomplish your divine purpose today for this passage coming to us today as a people. We ask for your spirit to come and do his work with your word and accomplish the mission of the word today. In Jesus name we pray, and amen. A few weeks we're gonna be coming across a verse in the gospel of Luke that is just dropped in the middle of chapter 16. The context before it and the context after it simply doesn't lead up to it or lead away from it. There's a parable before it and a parable after it. And Luke just drops a verse right in the middle in verse 18. Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery, boom, bam, nuke dropped, no context, no explanation, Mike dropped, Jesus moves on, just lays it out. And so because that's coming, I think it's important that we spend at least a Sunday before we get there and kind of set the stage why Jesus would say that, the way that he says that and with no explanation at all, just drops that bomb and he moves on. And so this morning we're gonna let Ephesians 5, 31, 32 read and write our marriages for us and set the stage a little bit so that when we get there, we kind of have a little backstory as to why Jesus would say that, the way that he said that. And I recognize this morning as we come into Ephesians 5 that I am dancing in a minefield. I am as a pastor dancing in a minefield. Some of you in this room and some of the marriages in this room that are represented, you're enjoying the feast of marital goodness. Some of you are riding on the clouds of marital bliss. Some of you are lost in the fog of marital confusion. Some of you are cold in the freezer of marital boredom and blah. Some of you are crashed on the rocks of marital wreckage. Some of you are bleeding on the fields of marital warfare. Some of you are worn out on the bed of marital weariness. Some of you are lying in the ER of marital pain and trauma. Some of you are stabbed with the poisonous dagger of the marital tongue. And some of you are stuck in the cul-de-sac of feeling a marital dead end. Some of you are single and on the ocean dingy of never thinking you're gonna get married. Some of you marriages completely in your future. And for some of you marriages in your past, I understand the minefield that we're entering into today. But whatever situation that we're in, wherever the minefield is and the mines that we might step on, Paul's words are true in Ephesians chapter five. These things will always be true. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. And the mystery is profound. And I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. And one of the reasons why problems creep in to our marriages or crash into our marriages is because our marriages become severed, severed from the only marriage that gives it meaning. It becomes severed from the mystery of the union and marriage that is Christ and the church. And when our marriages become severed from the mystery marriage that is Christ and the church, they lose their meaning, they lose their definition, they lose their reason to be according to the apostle Paul. And so as we come to this passage, I want you to drop with me into verse 32. Paul says that this mystery of marriage is profound. This mystery is profound. He says it's a mystery because it's not something that's immediately clear what he's about to say. The clarity of it lacks, it's blurred. We don't really see it clearly until the bridegroom comes. And when the bridegroom Jesus comes onto the scene, finally we see it clearly. A mystery is something that's blurred for a while and then is made clear later on. And we see this clearly, this mystery becomes clear when Jesus shows up on the scene. And when the bridegroom shows up on the scene, now we see what the mystery actually is that's been hidden in ages past, but it's now made clear when Jesus himself actually comes. And this mystery, according to the apostle Paul, is profound. This is the only time when the word mystery is used by the apostle Paul that he attaches the word profound to it. Multiple times in the book of Ephesians, the word mystery is used. Multiple times in the Pauline letters, the word mystery is used. But only here, only here does Paul attach the word profound to it. Here the mystery is great. Here the mystery takes our breath away. Here the mystery is of another kind. Here the mystery is something beyond what we could even conceive, its profundity is something just staggering in every way. But what is it? Well, we would be led to believe reading coming out of verse 31, that the mystery that is profound is the end of verse 31. The two shall become one flesh. The mystery is profound. And yet that's the right inclination, but that's the wrong marriage. This mystery is profound, Paul says. And I'm saying that it refers to Christ in the church. You see the mystery that Paul's talking about is the mystery that is Christ and the church, the marriage of Christ in the church, the union that exists between Christ and the church. Christ as the bridegroom and the church as his bride, that is the mystery that Christ is talking about. This mystery is profound. And I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. What refers to Christ and the church? All of it does. The mystery does refers to Christ and the church. That's the great mystery of the ages. Why is there anything at all? Why did God create it all? God created so that there might be a bride for his son. The story begins in a wedding and it ends at the wedding feast of the lamb. The whole story is that Jesus would come and he would chase the girl and get the girl and bring her home to the father. And there's this wedding feast at the end. That's why there's anything at all is because the father loved his son and provided a bride for her. That's the mystery and it's profound because that is what it is that God is doing from Genesis to Revelation, from the Alpha to the Omega, from the beginning to the end. Everything that God is doing, everything that God is doing in history is the provision of the bride for his son. And it stuns us that we've been woven into and brought into and grafted into and been made a part of this bride that is the church that is loved by the son and has been redeemed by the son and has been chased by the son. The son loves his bride and he has come for her and he has died for her and he has risen for her and he has captured her and he's bringing her home. At the end of history ends at the wedding and marriage of the lamb as the bride comes forth. In the book of Revelation, you see it is a profound mystery, but it's more than that. Genesis 2.24 also refers to Christ and the church. Verse 31, "Therefore a man shall leave his father "and mother and whole fast to his wife "and the two shall become one flesh. "The mystery is profound." And I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. Church, listen, the reason why God created Adam is because first there was Christ. The reason why God created Eve is because first there was the church. And the reason why God created Adam and Eve to be wed together is because first there was Christ in the church. In other words, God's eternal purpose was that there would be Christ in the church. And when God went to create, He embedded in the creation from the very beginning a micro story, a little story whose existence from the beginning was to house the big story and to tell the big story. The reason a man leaves his father and mother and holds fast to his wife and the two becomes one flesh is because there is the mystery of Christ and the church. You see, this is what God has done. From the beginning, God has baked into the very fabric of creation, the saving mystery of Christ and the church into the very wedding and story and marriage of Adam and Eve. It's not, it doesn't come later. It's etched into the Genesis marriage from the very beginning. Christ and the church is found in the Genesis 2, 24 passage. That's why Adam leaves his father and mother. He didn't have any, but that's why he established it. That's why he holds fast to his wife. That's why they become one flesh is because Christ in the church was always that, you see. You see, Adam and Eve were always pointing to something more than their marriage. Marriage was always pointing to something more than it self, you see. And so God in his infinite wisdom always had Christ in the church as his purpose for the reason of his creation. And so God says, how is it that I can build the mystery into my created story? How can I tell the mystery before I show the mystery? Right? How can I tell the mystery for thousands of years and always tell the mystery before I show the mystery? And so here's what he does. I will showcase the mystery of Christ in the church because I will give marriage. That's what it is. I will give these mystery stories of little marriages that exist for the purpose of telling the bigger story of Christ and the church. That's what defines marriage. That's why marriages exist. That's why God gave them. That's why you send your sons out. That's why you give your daughters over. That's why that continues on and on. We do this so that the story of Jesus and the church will be perpetually told world without end until Jesus himself comes. And that's one of the ways in which God wants that story to be told. You see, marriage is the mystery that already anticipated the other mystery. And marriage has within it the mystery of Christ and the church and it is defined by Christ and the church. And the marriage mystery of Christ and the church is what gives meaning to the marriages that we ourselves have. And so I want us to think about that for a moment. The reason why you married according to God is so that your marriage could put on display the story of Christ and the church. So your marriage is defined by Christ and the church not by you. Your marriage is defined by Christ and the church not by culture. The meaning of your marriage is not what you get out of it. The meaning of your marriage is that it placards Christ and the church. The union of Christ and the church is what gives meaning to your marriage, a meaning that could never have from anywhere else. You see, your marriage is a sacred manifestation of the marriage of Christ and the church. It's always sacred. No matter what, we could say that marriage is a sacred short, right? You go to the movies, they have the feature presentation, that's Christ and the church. But before the feature presentation, they have these little short movies and that's what your marriage is. It's one of those little short movies. It's a sacred short, okay? And that sacred short is to tell the same story as the big story, but to do it in miniature in a shorter way that's temporary, you see. Because your marriage is temporary because it's only gonna last as long as it does because it gives way to the bigger story. Why do you think marriage doesn't last into the new heavens and the new earth? Because it's fulfilled in the Christ and the church. That's why, that's why there's always a temporary character to marriage. That's why you can remarry after someone dies, right? That's why the issues that God gives for divorce and remarriage, the grounds for that in the Bible that do exist are legitimate is because marriage is a temporary thing because it's going to give way at death. And at the end, you and I will simply be sons and daughters of God, enfolded as members of the church, married to Christ and our marriages will give way to that great marriage. And so this is the way that God decided to do it. He decided that he would build into the world millions of little marriage stories, the purposes of which were to tell the big story always, refract and tell the big story always. And you have these built throughout Ephesians five, husbands are to as Christ, right? So 523 even as Christ is the head of the church, 525 husbands love your wives as Christ, right? 529 as Christ does the church. You see the role of the husband is Christologically grounded. No Christ, no husband, it's not the other way. See, we have this, we sometimes think that God created Adam and Eve, God created marriage and then said, "Man, I think this would be a great idea if I patterned Christ in the church after Adam and Eve." No, God's plan is Christ in the church. And when he went to create, he said, "I'm going to take this eternal love story and I'm going to put it in creation." And those little love stories from the beginning are going to tell the bigger love story. That's the reason why he created marriage. You see, not the other way around. We have it flipped around. We think that we're the antitype and that Christ's marriage to the church is the type. That's not true, okay? That's not true. Christ's marriage to the church is the fulfillment and the antitype. We're the types, okay? We're the little stories, he's the big story. And so so husbands as Christ and so wives as the church, right, verse 24 says for the wives, your role is ecclesiologically grounded, right? Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives. And so notice that the grounding for the roles, and I'm not going to preach the roles today, okay? What I'm trying to show you is that the grounding for the roles are grounding in something that is transcendent, okay? And that's the relationship of Christ in the church. And so that's why we need the vision of Christ and the church because every single marriage exists to tell that story, not its own story, okay? Not its own story. And so that's where we run, that's where we bump up into the problems is we have these competing narratives that happen, right? We want our marriage to tell a certain story. And that story competes with the fact that the Bible has already established the story that our marriages are supposed to tell. And that is the story of Christ in the church. That's already been given for us, okay? Marriage is a dramaturgy. That's a way for you to think about it. Marriage is a dramaturgy. What do we mean by that? Well, here's what we mean by that. Marriage, in marriage, we dramatically live out and put on display in the liturgies and stories and scenes of our married life, the script of Christ in the church. That's it. The scenes of our married life, the stories of our married life, the liturgies of our married life, we look to the script of Christ in the church. That's what we do. We look to that script. Here's the script of Christ in the church, right? And we follow that script in our married lives. That's an authoritative script for how we live our married lives, all right? So that should be being trained in our children. It should be being embodying in our lives. Our script must be acted out. We look to the script that God gives Christ in the church and that script becomes the script for our married lives. The chief end of your marriage is not your satisfaction. The chief end of your marriage is not your happiness. The chief end of your marriage is not what you want and not what you planned and not what your dreams are and not your personal fulfillment. If you put the freight of any of those on your marriage, you will crush your mate and you will be hopelessly sad. The chief end of marriage is to tell the story of Christ in the church faithfully. That's it. And when you do that, guess what gets thrown in? All the other stuff. All the other stuff you think you need to have gets thrown in. But if you aim for that other stuff, you lose that. You lose that stuff. But you aim for telling the story of Christ in the church and God will give you all the sprinkles on your doughnut in your marriage. But you aim for the sprinkles and you're not gonna get the doughnut. And so the issue is this. The question that your marriage should be trying to answer at every moment is this. Are we in this season of our married life aiming to faithfully show Christ and the church off? Are we at this season of our married life trying to put the story of Jesus and the church on display? That's the question that should be being asked at every moment in your married life. That is what your marriage is for. That's what you should be asking. And that's the only question that ever needs to be asked because if that question is answered, all the other things line up. All the other things line up. But if you don't answer that question and you're like, I'm not getting this out of my marriage, I'm not getting that out of it. It's not me, get, get, get, get. Guess what? You're gonna get, get, get, get, get. Because you're asking the wrong question, you see. You should be asking, when you come together for your family marital meetings, right? The question on the table should be, how can our family glorify Christ through telling the story of Jesus and the church? Where do we need to repent? Where do we need to forgive? Where do we need to shore up? Because if you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all these other things will be added to you, Jesus said. So why should a man leave his father and mother and whole fast to his wife so they become one flesh? I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. That's what we're missing in our, the imaginary, the modern imagination of the church is missing this. So our marriages are in the situation they're in. You see church inside the wardrobe of verse 31 is the Narnia of verse 32. Right? There's more in this wardrobe of our marriages than coats and jackets. In the wardrobe of your marriage, it should lead to the Narnia of Christ and the church. That's just the way it should go. And you know, we need a reinvigoration of our marital imaginations. We need to let the Bible read and re-script our marriages because it's often your marriage that competes with your marriage. Because your marriage is to be a story of Christ and the church, but your actual marriage competes with that. And you need to let the Bible read your own marriage and re-script your own marriage because you know what? Your marriage is not yours. Your marriage is not yours, it never was. On your wedding day, your marriage was mistreated into Christ and the church and at the cross, your marriage was enfolded into Christ and the church. And so the only question is, what are you doing with his marriage? Cause it's not yours. It's not yours. Right? And so the mystery is following his script and showing the mystery. You know, I've been pastoring for a long time, a long time, and been pastoring marriages for a long time. And you know what? I really never heard in a pastoral context when we were really in the grip of things. I've never heard a man or a woman look me in the face and passionately say this. I just want my marriage to glorify and honor Christ and the church no matter what it costs me. I've never heard a person break to that point. And that's why the marriage breaks because we don't break to that point. That's what happens. Now sometimes one person might break to that point and the other person doesn't and that's why the marriage breaks. It's not always on the two people, right? That's why Jesus said, because of the hardest of your heart, that's why there's a provision for divorce and that's why there's a provision for your marriage because that does happen and God wants people to be able to glorify the Lord in the second mountains. That does actually happen. And so let me round this out and offer some hope, okay? So the first is this, the church needs to restore the reality that the only hope that we have for our marriages to answer the reason why they were created is if every marriage in the church actually begins to take seriously that the call of your marriage and the end of your marriage is to faithfully tell the story of Christ in the church and that you begin to seek that by grace and forgiveness earnestly in your home. If that happens, the church will actually begin to show itself off in the right kind of way like we should when it comes to our marriages and you have to come to that place as a home yourself. You have to break to that place yourself. Every husband in this room and every wife in this room needs to break to that place to yourself. That whatever you're holding out for and whatever original circumstance that you were in at the beginning when I read all those situations that you can be in, whatever situation you find your marriage in, it's not going to change until you break to this point. That the reason why our marriage exists is to tell the mystery of Christ in the church. And when you come to that place, then you've turned the corner. Let me give a couple of implications that fall out of this, okay? The first is this, Christ. This is just honest, earthy stuff, okay? Christ is married to the small C Catholic church, yeah? Which has had many iterations in history. One church, I'm not counting the Old Testament right now, just leave the Old Testament aside, I'm not going to deal with that. Just many iterations since the Old Testament, all right? So Jesus says love the apostolic church with all of its wards and then it became the early church. Then the early church became the split between East and West. And then it became the Roman Catholic church and the Eastern church. Then we had the Reformation, he loved that church. And then we had the Baptist and Jesus even loves the Baptists. I do too. And then we had the Great Awakening and then we had the Second Great Awakening and then we had evangelicalism and now we've had the Confused Church. In other words, in the last 2000 years, the one small C Catholic church has been like all these different kinds of churches and Jesus has loved this one bride all the way through. Listen church, the same is going to be true of your marriage. If you stay married long enough, you will come to find out that the one person that you married to is going to be five to eight strangers in that time period. That one person you married is not going to be the person that you married. Throughout a lifetime, because of time and the beating of life, you're going to change and they're going to change and there can change a lot over the years and you cannot know ahead of time. You cannot know on the day you get married. You cannot know ahead of time, the physical, spiritual, social and mental changes that are coming to the person that you are saying I do too. You don't know, you can't know. God doesn't tell you in advance. You're not going to know who your spouse is until you get to that moment. You won't know what your spouse is at the 10 year mark until you get to year 10. You won't know until you get to year 30. You won't know that until you get there, okay? You are going to have to go through seasons of life in which you will have to learn to love the person you married differently and all over again. Mrs. Deutsch is coming up on 34 years of marriage to a difficult man. (audience laughing) Exactly. In 34 years, she's been married to 34 different men. Every June 2nd, a stranger shows up. She is a no, she's going to get the guy who's going to gain 100 pounds that year who's losing 100 pounds that year. She doesn't know if she's going to get fezzy wig or Mr. Depresso. She doesn't know. I mean, down in El Rio, it's 51 dates every year for us. Why is she still here? Because that's what the promise is for. Because she said I do. Because she stands behind her word to me. Her vows to me. On July 2nd, 2013, we lost everything. Overnight, everything in our life of 20 years was gone. I had, we had nothing. Nothing. Everyone but our family had abandoned us. Everything was gone. And our anniversary was in four days. And on our anniversary, she made me take us out to the place where I asked her to marry me. And she said to me in the very spot I asked her to marry me a couple of decades before, she said, "This is as bad as it can get." But I said, "For better or for worse?" And David, this is for worse, for worse, for worse. And I'm not going anywhere. I gave you my word. And I will stand with you. You see, we don't bend our spouse to fit the size of a one year love. Over the years, we break ourselves to learn to love the one that he gives us, it's going to change throughout our lives. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to be broken over and over again and learn to bend your love to the changes that's going to happen to the person that you said, "Yes, I do too." I'm not talking about dealing with grounds for divorce issues. I'm not talking about that. I'm fighting today for the 98% of you that will never have grounds for divorce, but your marriage is going to go sour and you're going to want it. And I'm telling you now, no, no. I'm telling you now, break. Let yourself be broken, bend the love to the person that you're actually married to and what they need and ride the lightning. Ride the lightning, you say. Bonhoeffer, on the sermon from prison, a marriage sermon from, wedding sermon from prison, said, "It is not love that carries the marriage, it is marriage that carries the love." It's the marriage that carries the love, 'cause love is this. But the marriage stays and it allows it to be bent, you see. Second implication, let's remember that it was two young idiots that got married back in the day. Listen, you all got to laugh. You were idiots when you got married, all right? And let's remember this, that you are not easy to live with. And let's remember this, the idol of expectation of perfect obedience has to go, right? What were you thinking? What were you thinking when you put two neurotic, selfish, immature people together and you think we're gonna become angels? Come on, people. Love does not answer that, all right? Every marriage is a covenant partnership of two private people with good intentions and zero understanding of how to deliver, right? So what is necessary? Marriage lives by 70 times seven, right? You're gonna have to forgive a million times. Forgiveness is gonna have to be the oil that keeps your marriage going because in order to tell the story of Christ in the church, you're going to have to oil your marriage with ready forgiveness, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of times, you see. Because that's, and here, this is what I'm talking about. The kind of forgiveness that doesn't litigate the past. How much of your marriage has spent litigating the past? That's not forgiveness. Does Jesus litigate your past when He forgives you? He covers it and He opens a new future for you. That's what happens in marriage when we forgive. We cover and we open a new future for our mates. We cover the sin and we open a new future for our marriage and we do it on time and time and time again because we forgive the inexcusable and our mates because God has forgiven the inexcusable in us. We take what we've received and we give it 70 times, seven, you see, that's what we do. That's the only way this whole thing works. And guess what? That's what you learn from the script of the church. That's why you need the ancient dirt of the liturgy in your life. When you come into church every Sunday, what happens? Jesus does for you what you must do for one another. He forgives you. That's the declaration and absolution of forgiveness in the liturgy is with the most important part besides communion because communion is Christ communing with you forgiven. And that script sets the script for your marriage, forgiveness and communion. So this script, scripts your marriage. You see, you go through this script and then you take it home and you do it in your home a thousand times. You come back and you get scripted here and you take it home and you do it a thousand times. That's the only way this works. So we're not, when you think of Christ in the church, don't be thinking of angel wings. Be thinking of dirt and blood, man. Be thinking of this liturgy that nourishes and cleanses and cherishes which we receive every week. That's earthy, that has a cross at the center of it and nails and blood and scars. That's what's at the center of this whole thing. And that's what Christ did for us. And that's the story that we bring into our marriages. You see, our marriages are going to be stories of martyrdom. They live by martyrdom. That's how they live. They thrive. You say, well, how does that even work? They live by martyrdom because when you die, Christ raises things. That's why. And so perpetual death skew it to perpetual resurrections, you see. And so the ancient dirt of the church and its liturgical life then scripts us to do this thing of telling the story of Christ in the church because we're retold the story of Christ in the church and we go through it as the bride. Every week and I bring this around to a close. You don't have to have all this story lined up. You don't have to have a non-wrecked marriage. Your marriage can be whatever condition it's in. And you're welcome at solely church. What I want solely church to be is a healthy place for people who find their marriages in whatever condition that they are in, in the marital madness. I want solely church to be a place where wherever your marriage is, wherever you're at in a marriage situation, listen. This is a place for healing. This is a place for help. This is a place for hope. This is a place for gospel. This is a place for grace. I want solely church to be a place where you don't have to lie about your troubles. You don't have to lie about your hardships. You don't have to lie about your messes. That you could come here with whatever baggage and wreckage you have, and we will love you through them. We will enter the darkness with you. We will come when you call. We will listen to your hurt. We will guide you into truth and light. We will stay there for the long haul. We will go with you through it all, and we will not abandon you. We will not leave you. We will not hide from your brokenness. We will cry with you. We will fight for you. We will fight with you and then buy you a pizza and a beer. We will not abandon you. We will wash your feet. We will stay with you in the fight so that all of our marriages at least begin to hedge in the direction that they need to be going. This is a church in which this sermon is not about arrival. This is a sermon in which what is put before us is where we need to be going. And wherever you are at on the going, this is a church for you to find a place of grace and help to get there, no matter where you're at on the place, because we as a part of the bride ourselves are the receivers of that from the Lord Jesus Christ. There is not one marriage in this room that doesn't need the grace of Christ. There is not one pastor, deacon, husband, man, woman, child in this room that does not need the grace of Christ for certain parts of our lives that have wreckage in them. This is not a pointing of the finger at. This is a clarion call for what our marriages need to aim towards because of what they are and a place for us to find hope because of what they're not because of the greatness of the gospel. So if you find yourself not where the marriage is supposed to be, this is the place for you. This is the church for you, because we want to be that kind of church for you because we want to be faithful to Christ and faithful to the scriptures and faithful to wherever you are at. Lord Jesus, I pray that you would be glorified that our marriages would be renewed and reformed, that those in wrecked situations would be comforted and helped, that those in situations that need repentance and renewal would find it, that those in hurting situations, Lord, would just find a peace that passes all understanding for those marriages that are just off the track a little bit that they would be put back on the track some, for all of us, Lord, to look one another in the face and say, we need today to know that the question that we are asking is, are we seeking to put on display Christ in the church? And today we anticipate that you will feed us at this table because we are your bride and you are not ashamed of us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Jonathan Meenk

January 14, 2025

Psalm 84 - Pastor David Deutsch

Jonathan Meenk

January 14, 2025

Pastor David Deutsch gives a message on Psalm 84 emphasizing the transformative power of gathering in God's presence, where worship, prayer, and singing allow believers to experience spiritual renewal and strength. It highlights the unique nature of time in worship, where moments in God's courts transcend ordinary time, becoming a foretaste of eternity. Ultimately, it celebrates the incomparable joy and blessing of being in communion with God and His people, declaring that even one day in His presence surpasses a thousand elsewhere.

Transcript

Good morning, Soli Church. We were about to enter back into Luke 13, but on Friday morning, I called an audible. So, open your Bibles to Psalm 84 this morning. Psalm 84. Lord willing, we will return to Luke 13 next Lord's Day. But let's spend some time letting the psalm wash over us this morning. Psalm 84.

Hear the word of God. For the choir director, according to the Gittith, of the sons of Korah, a psalm. How lovely are your dwelling places, O Yahweh of hosts. I'm using the LSB. My soul has longed and even fainted for the courts of Yahweh. Amen. My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the bird has found a home in the swallow, a nest for herself, where she sets her young at your altars.

Oh, Yahweh of hosts, my King and my God, how blessed are those who dwell in your house. They are ever praising you. How blessed is the man whose strength is in you and whose heart Are the highways to Zion passing through the valley of Baca. They make it a spring. The early rain also wraps it up with blessings.

They go from strength to strength. Each one of them appears before God in Zion. Oh, Yahweh, God of hosts, hear my prayer. Give ear, oh God of Jacob. See our shield, oh God. And look upon the face of your anointed for better is a day in your. Courts than a thousand elsewhere. I would choose to stand at the threshold of the house of my God.

Then dwell in the tense of wickedness for Yahweh as a son and shield, Yahweh gives grace and glory. No good thing to see. Withhold from those who walk. Blamelessly. Oh, Yahweh of host. How blessed is the man who trusts in you. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Let us pray. Our God in heaven, we come to your word this morning and ask that you would grant us to hear you.

We need to hear you this morning, but we need to hear you with our hearts. Because according to your word this morning, our heart is where the highway to Zion is. It is our heart that's on pilgrimage to you. And so it is through our ears and with our hearts that we need to hear you this morning. We need the depths of our soul fed with your word.

We need our bodies nourished with your word. We need our whole persons with you in your presence today. Satisfied in your courts. Lead us there, I pray, through this psalm. In Jesus name we pray. As we come to Psalm 84 this morning, just a little bit of context to help us. The whole book of Psalms, the Psalter is composed of five books in the Psalter.

All 150 Psalms are made up of five books and they have a flow to them. The Psalter moves through a flow and it's a descent to an ascent, or we might say a humiliation to an ascent. to an exaltation. Really, the Psalms tell the story of Jesus in advance in poetry through the fall and rise of the Davidic kingship.

And of course, it's told to us through beautiful, formed and structured poetry. And the way these books unfold is the book. One of the Psalms goes from Psalm one to. Psalm 41, and that's the establishment of the Davidic kingship and Zion told in poetry. And in book two, we go from Psalm 42 to Psalm 72, and that's the fall of the Davidic kingship told in poetry.

In book three, we go from Psalm 73 to Psalm 89, and that's the fall of Zion and the temple told and poetic. metaphor and poetry. In book four, we go from Psalm 90 to Psalm 103 and that's the return of the King. And then in book five from Psalm 104 to Psalm 150, it's the establishment of the ideal kingdom and Zion and the true city.

And so we have this move through the Psalter of this fall and rise and this humiliation and this exaltation. And our Psalm, Psalm 84 is found in book three and book three is the book of the fall of Zion. And the fall of the temple and the Psalms that lead up to our Psalm, especially beginning in Psalm 77 are like what we've experienced this last week around us.

They are Psalms of devastation, but when we come to our Psalm, something changes. There's a dramatic change of tone when we get to Psalm 84, a dramatic change of temper when we get to Psalm 84. Life comes into sharp focus in Psalm 84 and what matters most becomes what is desired most. Let me say that again.

When we come to Psalm 84, when everything around is being devastated. Clarity happens. And what matters most Becomes what is desired most. There is a purity of desire here in Psalm 84, a fruitfulness of imagination, a transfiguring of time, a satisfaction in God and an experiential blessedness that the sons of Korah Tell us about, and so I'm actually going to just really do a gloss on this song when you start studying on a Friday at school with snatches and grabs, it's a gloss.

Okay. Um, and so just go with me. Um, this is not what I would normally do, but, but it will still be an exposition, but it's more just kind of a fly over gloss. Look at that. And look at that and look at that. Um, and, but I think there'll be some good stuff for us, uh, in there. Um, so. But let's start with the inscription of a psalm, because those inscriptions are there and they're on purpose.

Um, and so if you look at the inscription, it says for the choir director, so this is a psalm we're supposed to sing. This is a, this is not something that we're just only to preach on. Uh, this, this psalm is to have wings. This psalm is to have glory attached to it. This psalm is, topo is supposed to take up residence.

Within us and be a song in our souls. And we're supposed to lift this song up in praise. It becomes a part of our singing, of course. And, and singing is what we do when we love, right? Only the lover sings. And so, as Augustine said, and so that's what happens here. These sons of Korah are singing this song because that's what you do when you love.

According to the Giddith, ain't nobody know what the Giddith is. Um, so I don't, and you don't, and nobody does, so I just make it up. No, I'm kidding. Um, nobody knows. God put it in there, and maybe 500 years from now, somebody will discover what it is. Um, so, it's according to the Giddith, and you don't know the Giddith, and I don't know the Giddith.

Um, but notice also, of the sons The sons of Korah, and this is important because the sons of Korah, they've, they write different blocks of Psalms back to Psalm 42 and here, and they have some blocks of Psalms that are attributed to them. And it's important to know their story before we look at this Psalm.

The sons of Korah come from the tribe of Levi. So they come from a priestly tribe. And king david takes the sons of korah and he makes them A worship leaders in the temple. He says you're going to be John minx plural. Okay. Um, that's what you're going to be You're going to be you're you are you are going to be the worship leaders When the temple gets built you are going to lead god's people From the very threshold at the door of the temple all the way all the way in you are going to lead god's people In the worship of the living God, but their history is checkered.

This is not the group that you and I would have chosen to lead God's people in worship at the temple. If you know your Bible and you remember the Korah's name is attached to what? Korah's what? Rebellion, right? In the wilderness, Korah and his clan rebel against Moses and Aaron, and in Numbers chapter 16, a devastating judgment comes against Korah and his entire clan.

And Korah's entire clan is whittled down to one surviving son as a result of the rebellion against Moses and Aaron. And this one son survives and he becomes a clan again. And guess what? David chooses this once rebellious now renewed and redeemed clan to be the temple worship leaders in Israel. It's a beautiful redemption story.

And you see, ultimately the temple will give way to Jesus who will come and he will be the true temple. Jesus will be the true priest and the true elder brother who will lead us in worship. And as we are united to Christ, the church becomes the temple We are the temple that we worship at. We are the priesthood that worships and we are the singers in the house of God as the house of God.

We are the fulfillment of the sons of Korah. What we've done this morning is we are the sons of Korah already. And so this, what they have done is they have anticipated us in this psalm in Jesus. And so it's absolutely beautiful. Now, this psalm is structured according to three blessings. Okay, it's, there's three blessings there, and we'll look at that as we go through.

And the rhythm is kept by two Selahs, which we were having some fun with before church started. Nobody knows what Selah means, either really. It probably means restful guitar solo. Where you just pause and listen to somebody play and being played the guitar for a moment, take a breath and then move back in again.

But that's kind of the structure. You have these blessings punctuated by two say laws, but then that, but that structure is a flow that you're supposed to feel when you go through the song. When you get to a say law, you are, you're supposed to pause. And you are supposed to breathe and you are supposed to let what you just experienced sit on you for a bit before you move in.

Okay? Um, because again, you're supposed to sing this. Okay? And so as you're singing this, you're singing this and then you get to the Selah, then you rest a bit before you move on in. And so it's important, uh, that those types of rhythms stay with us because God made us for rhythm in that way. Amen. And so as we come to the psalm itself, uh, let's, let's gloss on it.

One verse at a time and see if we can't let it go through us. Verse one says, the psalmist says, how the sons of Korah say, how lovely are your dwelling places, O Yahweh of hosts. The how lovely there is interesting. He's not actually talking about the loveliness of the place. Um, the Hebrew is not talking about the place itself is lovely, that the courts are lovely or the dwelling places lovely.

The Hebrew is how. Okay. It's, it's how much I love the dwelling place. Not how, when I get there, I find it lovely. He's talking about the intensity of his own devotion, the intensity of his own love. Okay. And whether you have the ESV or whether you have the LSB or whatever, they translate it as lovely, but every commentary you read in every Hebrew grammar, you get, it's the other way around.

It's how much I love. And so from the very beginning, the sons of Korah, they love. The dwelling places of Yahweh, they love the places where the Lord has promised his special and covenantal presence. And you say, well, wait a minute here, isn't God everywhere present and doesn't it match then that we would love all of the places equally because God is equally present everywhere?

No, absolutely not. We cannot confuse the omnipresence of God with the special presence of God. And we cannot confuse the omnipresence of God with the covenant presence of God. God was equally omnipresent when he was specially present in the burning bush. Right? God was omnipresent when he was specially present in the pillar of cloud.

God was omnipresent when he was specially present in the glory cloud in the holy of holies. God has special manifestations. And covenantal presences that are unique manifestations that are different from his general omnipresence. And the Sons of Koran know that, that the ga, that the temple of God is one of those places where that happens.

And so for them, wherever it is, that God is going to manifest his special covenantal, unique presence, they love it. Do you, do you love? The gathering where God has promised to reveal himself in the special way that is different from the other ways. The temple that is the church of the living God. Can you say, Oh, how I love your dwelling places.

Oh, Yahweh of hosts. Not, not, not because of the dwelling place, but because of the one who reveals himself when we gather. because the one who shows himself differently when we're together than he does when we're apart. You see, because of the specialness of that, there's an intensity that's there. And I also want you to know that, that the Psalm, the Sons of Coral, they, they ran sack, the names of God.

And I think this is important for us, okay? There are so many names of God that are revealed to us in the scriptures, and it's important for us to recognize that we can ransack them all. Okay. We don't just have to, we just don't have to give ourselves to one. And so when we find ourselves in certain circumstances, it's good for us to reach out to the different names, the names of God and hang ourselves on different names of God at different times because the comfort that it brings.

And so because we're in book three, okay, um, we're in book three where we're dealing with the fall and devastation of the temple and of, and of Jerusalem, and we're longing for that thing to come back again, in which it's going to come back again, Yahweh of armies is the right way. to address God you see, it fits what faith needs at the moment.

And so even the name that's here, and in fact, if we had time to go back, go back in the Psalms before this, you will see that, as we go back further and further, the name of Yahweh is used less and less than the Psalms before this. And it's just Elohim. It's just the generic name for God and the Psalms before this, um, no Yahweh hardly found at all.

And then as you move closer to this Psalm, then it just explodes with Yahweh. Bye. In this particular song, and it explodes with Yahweh of armies, because that's, that's what they need to see. And that's who it's true who God is. And so who is it that dwells in our midst? It's Yahweh of armies. The God who fights for us.

You see, the God who fights for us is the God who is promises his special presence. In the midst of God's people. And we love it. How I, how we love it. How I love your dwelling places. Oh, Yahweh of hosts. How much do we love it? We love it so much that we long for it. Our whole desires of our lives are oriented towards it.

Towards the gathering of the worship of the Lord. Look at verse two. My soul has longed and even fainted for the courts of Yahweh. My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. This is not just a part of him. The whole of the sons of Cora. This is a whole person to hunger, a whole person desire, his heart, the inside, his body, the outside, all of me is all in.

This is a consuming desire that he has not for the place, but for the living God who reveals himself there. He has reached the end. End of his humanity there. You see everything. My soul longed. I fainted for the courts of Yahweh. My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. You see, he's reached his end when he's in the presence of the living God.

It's the one who dwells there, the one who has life in himself, the one who gives life to his people. People. And so I've got to be there because this is the answer to my soul. This is the answer to my fainting. This is the answer to my heart. This is the answer to my flesh. The living God is the answer to the totality of my desires and my hunger.

And what I, what I long for is found only in him. And it's interesting the way he brings that to me. The way that he returns that to me is when I sing for joy to him. My soul has long let even fainted for the courts of Yahweh. My heart and my soul, my flesh sing for joy to the living God. You see, that's why the psalmist says in another place that Yahweh sits enthroned.

Upon the praises of Israel. What does that mean? He inhabits our praises. You see, he inhabits them in such a way that it is through our singing that he actually comes to indwell and feed us with himself and satisfies us. That's why we cry out to sing to him and, and, and the deepest parts of us are satisfied.

And we do this together in community. They are the sons of Korah, not a son of Korah. You see, we are a choir together, a priestly choir gathered on the Lord's day so that He might inhabit our praises and satisfy us with Himself. We reach the end of ourselves when we are in the church, priesthood gathered, singing, and God is giving Himself to us.

It is the place where our desires are met, the deepest part of our desires as well as where our imaginations light up as well. Look at verse three. This is in advance of Jesus and talks of birds and sparrows and stuff already in advance. Verse three, even the bird has found a home. And the swallow, a nest for herself, where she sets her young at your altars, O Yahweh of hosts, my King and my God.

What a fruitful imagination the psalmist has with this clarity that he has, this purity of desire that he has for God. This fruitful imagination imagines himself like Jesus will come to say that we're supposed to imagine ourselves as birds nesting, cared for. And here it's It's that there's a home here.

Okay, even the bird has found a home. Okay, a nest, even a place for her young and this is it. Church is home. The gathered saints. When we gather with the saints, we're home. We're home. Church is home, right? And this is an advance on our eternal home. When we gather together as God's people. In the worship of the living God.

This is an advance of home and it is a taste of home and it's the beginning of home. And you'll notice that where this is, right? Look at where it is. I mean, where does this bird find a home for her and her young? It's at the altar. It's at the place of sacrifice. And there were two altars, right? One on the outside of the, of the tent of meeting and one on the outside and then one right on the inside as well.

This is where the blood was put. This is where the sacrifices were made. And so it's here. This is the place that we are at home, the place where the sacrifice is made. What binds us together. Is the blood that is shed here. This is what makes it a home where we are welcome because of the blood of another and not our own, you see, so that because of that blood that is shed, that's not our own blood.

We can say to this God, you are my King and you are my God. There's a covenantal relationship that is established through this blood where we can directly say to this God of armies, you are mine. You're my king and you're my God. And that is true of you. And that is true of me. I can say it of me that you're mine.

I can say it of you that you're my God and that you're my king. You see, and this is absolutely wonderful. And like he cares for the birds. So he cares for us. And this is the place that is the beginning of our home. It's absolutely amazing that our imagination should be there when we come, when we gather on the Lord's day again, you're saying, well, it's not, it's not the aesthetic of this place.

Do you understand that? I hope you do.

It is not the aesthetic of this place that makes it home. It's the aesthetic of this face that makes it this face and those faces. That's the difference. You see, the temple is made up of people. Now we are the temple of the Lord and this, this, this is what is beautiful. This is where it happens. This, this is, this is what makes it what it is.

And so it's absolutely amazing. And if you look at verse 4 then, we're not visitors, we're dwellers. Alright? It's wonderful. How blessed are those who dwell in your house. We don't rush in and rush out. This is where we belong. This is home. We're dwellers here. We're belongers here. Okay. This is home. This is, this is our people.

We're, we're family here. We dwell in this house together. Okay. Um, I want you to notice that word blessed there. This is important. Because there are two Hebrew words for blessed and I want you to track with me for a moment because I think this is This really matters. There's two Hebrew words for blessed one is Rebecca or baraka, right?

Um, which is the blessing that god gives So god gives the barak the baraka blessing and then there is the hebrew word asher And that's what happens to you when god gives you the baraka. So god comes to you and he's baraka. He Blesses you When he does that, you become Asher. You become the blessed. Okay.

That's what happens to you. You become the Asher. Okay. But what, what you need to understand is that this blessed here, all of the word, all three blessings here are Asher in the Hebrew in Psalm 84. It means every time you see this word in Psalm 84, it means you are the one who has received blessing from the Lord.

Okay. Not that the Lord has given it to you. It's already been given. You now are the blessed. You're not being blessed. If you've been blessed, now you are the blessed one. Okay? And that word Asher then is experiential. Okay? You are actually experiencing the blessedness of being the blessed one when you dwell in the house of the Lord.

Okay. And part of that word, I'm sorry to break down all of you super pious people in the room. Part of that word does actually mean happy. I'm sorry if you have a problem with happiness. Oh, well, God doesn't. Jesus doesn't. Okay. There are times in our life in which simply being happy is a good thing. Okay.

Now we don't live for happiness and we don't live from happiness, but God does give us times of happiness. There are times in your life in which it is just right to shake a leg, right? To just jig your leg. All right. And so I, I'm just saying that is, that is the case, right? So, I mean, here, here's the point.

You live off bananas, but sometimes you just want a Twinkie, right? And so the Twinkie makes you happy. All right. A banana makes you joyful because you think you're eating right. All right. And so, and so, but, but, but a Twinkie gives you five seconds of happiness, but man, it's a good five seconds of happiness, man.

When that thing is going down, right? So the salad. I guess it gives you joy because you feel like you're eating right. But man, on that day where you just are craving McDonald's french fries, hot and salty. You know, you know it has 37 ingredients from Area 51. You know that. You know that in advance, but for just that moment, man, just the whole thing is happy.

Um, uh, and it's okay. All right. So if you drive by and you see someone from solely in line at, uh, at McDonald's, just give them a thumbs up. It's just their five minutes of happiness that week. It's okay. They know what they're doing, right? Happiness is a good thing. It's a by product. It comes with being ushered by God.

Okay. Um, it comes with it. And so there are moments in which God gives us, uh, uh, seasons of which it's just things are rolling your way. Things are just a little bit good and a little bit lighter than usual. And it's okay to just enjoy it and laugh and be a little happy. You're just blessed for that particular season.

This is part of what it means to be God's people. God gave us belly laughter for a reason. He gave us the ability to express. for reason. It's not something you live off and it's not something you live for. It's a byproduct of something that God gives you as he gives you deeper things. But, but let's not be the Gnostic no no people who are afraid of, of God's, what he gives to us.

And so, Asher are those who dwell in your house. They are ever praising you. And part of that Asher is to have some happiness every once in a while that God himself gives. And you'll notice that again, the house, the dwellers in the house, what are they doing? They're praising the Lord. They are singing. to the Lord.

They, they, they, they know what they're there to do. They're there because they find that in Yahweh, their deepest satisfaction is answered and he's answering it while they're in the midst of praising him. Selah.

Okay. Verse five. After a little Selah. How blessed is the man whose strength in you in whose heart are the highways to Zion. How blessed, here we go, Asher again, the way we go, Asher, Asher. How blessed is the man whose strength is in you and whose heart are the highways to Zion. This is a beautiful verse.

In Hebrew, it's Asher is the Adam. Asher is the Adam. How blessed is the man whose strength is in you. You in whose heart are the highways to Zion. Now, this is interesting, the way that this verse is constructed is it links to the, to the previous verse and it links to the next verse. Those who are at home in the worship of God find strength in life.

How blessed is a man whose strength is in you. That's found, strength that's found in God. Okay. So strength is found for life by dwelling in worship, by not rushing through worship, by, by lingering in worship as the house of God, finding your desires met there. And the strength is found in the God who reveals himself to you.

And so strength for the pilgrimage comes in worship from worship unto worship and leads back to worship because it's in God, where God himself gives himself to you in the gathered worship and singing. And the reason why that's the case is because of this beautiful line. Your heart has a highway in it.

In whose heart is the, are the highways. This is an incredible phrase in English. And it's incredible in Hebrew. It's, it would be incredible in any language that the way God has made your redeemed heart. Is that your redeemed heart has a highway on it. It is a highway and it's actually oriented to Zion.

It's actually oriented to God. That, that's the direction that it heads. And so that, that's the direction that your heart is going. leads your heart as a highway that goes directly to God, directly to Zion, where God is. It needs God. It cannot be satisfied apart from God. It can only be satisfied if your heart That is the highway to Zion actually makes it to Zion.

It has to make it there. Okay. Um, that, that's the whole thing. Your heart, your heart leads there. It must get to Zion where it will be satisfied with the God who is there. And that's where your strength is. Okay. But guess what? You got to go through a valley to get there. Verse six. Passing through the valley of Baca, they make it a spring.

The early rain also wraps it up with blessings. And so on the way, as your heart moves towards Zion, you have to go through a valley. This passing through the valley of Baca. And guess what? No one knows what that means either. Baca is similar to the Hebrew word for weeping, But not similar enough to make the jump.

Similar to the word for balsam tree.

There we go. That's all we know. But here's the thing. Here's what we do know. The context makes it very clear that wherever the valley of Baca is, it's a place without water. And the one thing we do know about balsam trees is that they grow in areas without water. They grow in arid areas. So this valley is without water.

That's important. Okay. So how, so here's where you're, you're passing through an area on your, on your way to your heart's on its way to Zion. You have to take your whole person throughout the week through the Valley of Baca between, between gatherings with the people of God, between Sundays, right? You have to go through the Valley, You got to go through arid places.

Okay. You have to pass through those, which means that worship as we gather doesn't insulate us from trouble in life. We still have to pass through those. Okay. So when you, when you leave here and go out into the week, You're going to go through some valleys and there's going to be some dry places that you're going to go into.

Your heart has found God here today. You've landed on him. He's revealed himself to you. He's given himself to you. Um, he satisfies the deepest parts of you. You sing to him. He sits in. All of this is happening right as we gather here today. All this is taking place, but you got to go out there again. Okay.

Um, and you got to go through that valley and you got to go through that arid place. That's absolutely true. But then something transformative happens. And I want you guys to know that I didn't start studying this until Friday, but I want you to see this because we might have to rethink about how we commission.

I'm just saying. And so go on a program. I mean, go with me here. We'll do this study together. We'll do a Bible study together right here. Just go with me. Um, but look at what happens. The Valley of Baca, as you go through it, yeah. You, you affect it more than it affects you, according to this verse. Passing through the Valley of Bacca, they make it a spring.

See that? You guys see that? Do you all see that? Yes or no? Okay. And then it says the early rain also wraps it, the Valley of Bacca up with blessings or pools. So instead of the Valley of Bacca draining you, you water it. With the water you got when you were here on Sunday. Okay. Um, and so that's interesting.

So there's two ways to take that. One would be somehow you make it a spring, like both the LSB and the ESV say they make it a spring. They make it a place of springs. So somehow you dig blessing out of that hardship as a Christian. Somehow you're able to do that. Um, that's what this says. Okay. They make it a spring.

Um, and then God sends this early autumn rain that wraps it up with pools or blessings just as autumn rain breaks the summer drought. So God sends this transformative rain into the valley and brings pools of water where there was this aridness. In connection with you going out after you have been with him in worship, getting all of the blessing that is him when you go out and go through, because your heart is highway to him already.

And you're going back to him on the other side of that. But notice what verse seven says this. I mean, I'm just, you got to go with me here because I'm going with the Psalm here. Then it says as they're going through the Valley, they come out on the other side, you're heading back to the next Sunday, getting back to that worship again.

It doesn't say necessarily that we're always coming in here dragging. It says they go from strength to strength. Each one of them appears before God in Zion. It's interesting, right? It's almost, it's all, listen, it's almost as if your heart is a highway set on God. And as you're propelled out of here on a Sunday and commissioned to go, you're sent into valley places.

What you gain here on a Sunday you take with you that becomes transformative wherever you go because you Your presence and the things that happen here that you take with you that you plant and give and offer there Makes that place better than it was because you were there And then all of a sudden you get to that place and the Sunday, the future Sunday Starts to pull you into what's coming and gives you more strength than you would have had And so the next Sunday pulls you into itself In advance it comes in other words as if a hand reaches from the future and starts to pull you Into it they go from strength to strength and then they appear before god in zion.

That's amazing So then you're going to appear before him again on the other side. And you went from strength to strength. You didn't get all your strength drained out. And so it's, it's, it's, it's really kind of interesting to think about that. So somehow Sunday, the gathering of God's people propels us out.

We take a transformative influence with us. And instead of losing strength, this future worship reaches out and starts to pull us in and gives us strength so that we move from strength to strength. Not that we necessarily always have to lose all of our strength because then we appear, verse seven, before God in Zion, which is a coming back together as God's people on Mount Zion before him again.

And we don't always come in together. Necessarily having to drag, we might even actually come in with some strength because it's pulled us in with what's Anticipated that we're going to be given in advance. It's almost as if the mystery of future worship works backwards and pulls strength forward It's kind of interesting.

I'll just leave it there. Verse 8 then says what happens when we come back before God? Well, you pray right? So verse 8 we pray We not only sing, we pray. Oh, verse eight, Oh, Yahweh, God of hosts, hear my prayer, give ear, Oh God of Jacob. And so we're a praising people, but we're also a praying people. And you'll notice that in the prayer here, there's a ransacking even of more of the names of God.

It's not Oh Yahweh of hosts, it's Oh Yahweh, God of hosts. Let's bring all the names in. Right. Let, let, let, let, let, let's, let's appeal to all of his name and let's, and let's, let's ask him to hear us twice. Okay. So it's two names of God and it's two askings for hearings. And so the praying is really important.

It's really a passionate seeking of the Lord. We really go before God and we really plead with him. It's actually three names. Oh God of Jacob, a third name, right? I mean, so you're appealing to who God is. You're appealing to what he has done and you're really asking him to hear. And so we are really pleading with the Lord in our praying as God's people.

And so pastor Jeremy was right when he's up here praying, we are praying, you are praying too. We are all praying as the sons of Korah together. And we're asking God to hear what it is that we are saying, but what is the most important thing that we can pray? Verse nine. Look at that. What are we asking God to do?

Verse nine is, it's just amazing. Look at what it says. Look closely at verse nine. You wouldn't, if you didn't read it a hundred times, you wouldn't miss this. Okay. It's asking God, watch this. He's not asking God to be our shield. It's asking God to see the shield. Look at this. See Our shield, O God, and look upon the face of your anointed.

The first prayer out of the sons of Korah's mouth is don't look at us. Look at him. Don't look at us. Look at our shield instead. Look at the thing covering us first. Look into the face of your son before you look at us. Look with your favor on your son, the one who is shielding and protecting us, before you look at us.

So goes the king. So goes the people. Isn't that, isn't that beautiful? See our shield. Look, look. Upon the face of your anointed. Don't look at us. Look at him. Look at the king. You see that? That's incredible. I have literally never seen that before. We would say it right now. We would say to the father, look, right.

Look, right. Look at, look at who's at your right hand, right? Look, right. Or we would do this before the throne of God above. I have a strong and perfect plea of great high priest whose name is love, whoever lives and pleads for me. My name is graven on his hands. My name is written on his heart. I know that while in heaven he stands.

No tongue can bid me thence depart. When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see him there who made an end of all my sin. Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free. For God the just is satisfied. To what? To look on him and pardon me, right?

That's what the sons of Cora are saying. Look there first before you look anywhere. That's just amazing. That's just incredible. Um, and all of that to sum up, right? And I'm close. I'm not preaching this. I'm finishing at 10 a, um, all of, because I didn't finish, right? I couldn't have time. Um, uh, so I was restarting on Friday.

Um, so all of that then pushes us to, To this, if all of this is true, if all of this is happening as we gather as God's people, the praying, the singing, the strength that we're being given, the satisfaction of our souls and our deepest desires being answered in our humanity. I mean, if it all comes together here, then can you not say this?

Better is one day. in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. Can you say that? Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. By the way, the word elsewhere is not in Hebrew. It just reads this better as a day in your court than a thousand. There's a day in your court than a thousand. Now roll with me for a minute on one level.

Huh. This is just simply saying it's staying. In the presence of God is a wonder and it's wonderful and a deep joy comes from being at home in the house of God, right? Better is one day in your courts. On another level, this is where we might take it. It's saying one day in God's presence is better than a thousand days of the same kind, but doing something else, right?

I'd rather be here doing this right now than anywhere else doing anything else right now. And that should be true. And that is partly what this is saying. I would rather be here with God's people, Worshiping, receiving the word, praying, singing, receiving the table than being anywhere else in the universe, doing anything else at all at this time.

And if all these things are true, then that should always be the case with us. And that is true. But there's actually something more going on here. For better is a day in your courts than a thousand. There's something deeper going on here. Because when we gather together as God's people on the Lord's day, when we gather together to worship, time changes in the presence of the Lord, or it should change.

If we would really enter into what's happening here on the Lord's day, if we were really attuned to it and not so distracted, time changes when we gather here on Sundays. It moves from Kronos to Kairos. This is a thin place, a meeting of heaven and earth and a meeting of time and eternity. Malcolm Guy put it this way in his poem on Psalm 84, for in his courts time is transfigured.

It's opened out and ample. It touches on eternity. I stay a while. I linger here because this is where time and eternity come together. This is where time opens up and out and new possibilities take place. This is where heaven and earth meet. This is, this is where God's people come face to face together and when, and gather with those who've gone before this us, the saints on high, the true Catholicity happens here.

Christopher Ashe, in his commentary on the Psalms, said, It's not simply that one day in God's presence is better than a thousand days of the same kind, but rather that a day in God's presence is a different kind of day. Right? This is a different kind of time that we're keeping Here when we gather for the time that we're here time is kept differently In the hour and 20 minutes that we gather together as a church It just goes differently That's why when you guys come to the table on the lord's day and you're lingering during the the passing of the peace, right?

It's like we're We could, we could just go on and on and on. And it's like, we, we, we, we, we, as, as pastors, we almost feel like guilty. Keep calling the time. Why? Because we're all in heaven for the moment. We're all, we're all transacting. in the presence of the Lord as we pass the peace with one another. I don't want to say time stands still because that's a rush song.

Um, uh, um, or, or go Jimmy V on it. Freezing baby. Um, I don't want to do that either, but, but time is, is, it's all, It changes. It's transfigured, right? Augustine said it this way. What use are a thousands of days to us? We are traveling from thousands of days toward the one eternal day. You see, when we gather on Sundays, a thinness occurs between that eternal day and this day.

It slips in. And we get a taste. And that's why a good Lord's day is the best of days. Right? Sometimes you leave church on a Sunday and yeah, and that, and there's just something so good about it. Something so right about somebody so healthy and rich and full and satisfying, something so Asher, something so blessed.

You can feel it in your soul and it carries you. Well, what is it? Well, it's this mysterious thing. Better is one day than a thousand. And we're just about to experience. So this is what God's doing when we gather together on Sundays. He's doing Psalm 84, right? So let's be a church that treasures Psalm 84 in 2025.

Amen. Amen. Lord Jesus, seal your word unto us and give us all that this psalm has for us this year in our gatherings and in our fellowship together. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Jonathan Meenk

November 5, 2024