A Source Of Strength (2)
Notes
Transcript
Strength is found by dwelling in God’s presence, especially in the midst of adversity.
3 Blessed-s
Blessed Are Those Who Dwell In God’s House
Blessed Are Those Whose Strength Is In God.
Blessed Are Those Who Trust In God
Blessed Are Those Who Dwell In God’s House! (84:4)
Blessed Are Those Who Dwell In God’s House! (84:4)
Dwelling Places (vs. 1)
Temple in mind, but places is plural.
How Lovely! rather - beloved
Courts Of The King…(vs 2)
But...it’s not just the building that the psalmist desires, it’s what the building represents: a yearning for the very presence of God.
C. S. Lewis...gives fine expression to this desire for God: “I have rather—though the expression may seem harsh to some—called this the ‘appetite for God’ than ‘the love of God.’ The ‘love of God’ too easily suggests the word ‘spiritual’ in all those negative or restrictive senses which it has unhappily acquired.… [The appetite for God] has all the cheerful spontaneity of a natural, even a physical, desire.”
Being in the presence of God elicits songs of joy to the Living God.
How Blessed are those who dwell in Your house!
They are ever praising you.
halel - to commend, to boast, to shine. To make God glorious!
Through making God glorious through song we are blessed.
Blessed Are Those Whose Strength Is In God. (84:5)
Blessed Are Those Whose Strength Is In God. (84:5)
Not only are we blessed, but through songs of praise to God we find our strength.
But in this Psalm there are specific places that the Psalmist is thinking of where we find that strength.
The Journey - The Pilgrimage.
Pilgrimages were nothing new to the Jew.
All the men were required 3 times a year to make their way to the 3 great feasts of Israel: Passover, Weeks, and Booths
This pilgrimage is to dwell in the courts of the King, to worship in the Temple.
Heart is set on getting to Zion.
metaphor for our journey in life on the way to Heaven.
To bring our plea. Hear our prayer (vs 8)
A plea. Emperor’s New Groove. Pacha comes to plead with Emperor Kuzco to not destroy his village. Goes on a trek to plea with Kuzco.
The problem is, everything may be going well on our journey and then suddenly a moment or moments of adversity hit.
Passing through the valley of Baca - The difficulties faced on the journey. (vs 6)
Baca means tears or weeping.
This is what happened when we found out Mark’s dad, Wink went missing. For those who don’t know, Mark’s mom and dad are staying at his dad’s sisters place.
Wink has dementia and left his sister’s house without his trackers being turned on and went missing.
Talk about bringing our prayers and pleas to God!
Tears turned into springs - going from strength to strength (vs 6)
Where are we finding this strength? In God.
What are we when we find our strength in God? We are blessed. (covers it with blessing)
How are we finding this strength in God? Through Halel. Through praise. Through making much of Him. Through making Him glorious.
Each spring becomes a dwelling place with God.
What did the Psalmist already say, how beloved are your dwelling places, plural.
more than just the temple.
it’s wherever we turn our tears into worship.
You have taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?
when we do, God meets us there.
going from spring to spring. faith to faith. grace to grace. strength to strength.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”
Faith waits for God to reveal Himself.
God we are waiting for you to reveal yourself through this adversity.
In the meantime we will worship you.
For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace
Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.
Each pool becomes a place of dwelling in God’s presence full of grace and truth, love and strength.
This is what we had to do this week.
We had to pause in the midst of the chaos of a wedding week and find our strength in God.
In addition to sending out prayers on multiple prayer chains, the morning after Wink went missing, Mark said, “I just have to stay calm. I read Psalm 23 this morning and was reminded that God knows where my dad is. And God will watch over him. It’s not going to do any good worrying about it because right now, there’s nothing I can do anyway but find some strength in knowing God is in control.”
We Will Make It To The End! - Each one appears (vs 7)
Keeping one’s focus knowing that we will appear before God. We will get there!!! (vs. 7)
Two young girls were talking, and one said she had ten pennies. The other girl looked at her hand and only saw five. She said, “You only have five pennies.” The first girl replied, “I have five and my father told me he would give me five more tonight. So I have ten.”
She understood that her father’s promise was as good as done.[1]
[1]Michael P. Green. (2000). 1500 illustrations for biblical preaching (p. 172). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.
It’s not “if” we’re going to make it. It’s “when” we will make it. We will present our prayers and requests to Him.
Praise God he heard the prayers of His people and saw fit to bring Wink back to the family alive at the hospital being treated for dehydration, but ok.
In the end God will bring us through to the other side of the valley, one way or another.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
Blessed Are Those Who Trust In God. (84:12)
Blessed Are Those Who Trust In God. (84:12)
God our sun - light - symbolic of restoration (vs 11)
Psalm 23 says, “He restores my soul.”
The Lord shines His light into our darkest nights.
A Source of Strength - Grace is given in God’s presence in the midst of the trial while praising Him.
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,
As we praise Him, each tear is being transformed into glory.
As we worship, each spring becomes a blessing.
For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime; Weeping may last for the night, But a shout of joy comes in the morning.
each night becomes morning
each wailing becomes joyful shouting
Yesterday morning we woke up to get ready for the wedding with a cloud over our heads.
But I was greeted to the morning with my sister crying, “Jon, they found him!”
And the dam burst. I had so much pent up emotion between Wink being missing and the wedding, that I started crying uncontrollably, but that wailing became tears of joyful hallelujahs!
The presence of God transforms adversity into prosperity, affliction into freedom, and death into life.
Gratitude
Communion
His Eye Is On The Sparrow
