Homesickness!

Psalm 84 “To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. 1 How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! 2 My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. 3 Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. 4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Selah 5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. 6 As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools. 7 They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion. 8 O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah 9 Behold our shield, O God; look on the face of your anointed! 10 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. 11 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. 12 O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!”

Hook:

Have you ever been homesick? I’m not talking about missing your bed? I am talking about if you were gone, away from parents working at a summer camp for 2 months for the first time. Moved off to college campus and yearned the comfort, relationships, and more from your home. Where the missing of home gave you physical symptoms. When you have experienced it, you know it.

[RUTGERS HEALTH] Homesickness is a natural, temporary, and common emotional distress caused by separation from familiar environments, routines, and loved ones, frequently impacting students or those in new locations. Common symptoms include sadness, anxiety, poor sleep, lack of appetite, and obsessive thoughts about home. It often follows a "honeymoon, shock, adjustment, isolation, and acceptance" stage model, typically fading as one builds a new social support network and routine. Coping involves actively engaging with the new environment, practicing self-compassion, and limiting, but not entirely cutting off, communication with home.

True homesickness is a longing and yearning for the familiar. Nothing feels right. It sometimes has the same symptoms of grief. You wonder if things will ever be back to the way you remembered them.

——(Pause)——

This psalm is written by someone who longs for, faints for the courts of the Lord. Literally, this means the temple. Not all of God’s people lived near the temple or the temple courts. And rarely would they get to be in the place where God dwelled. It is a sad reality when someone can’t get to the place to worship God. In the bible days, there were various reasons people couldn’t get to the temple. Some examples include…

Exile because they were foreign armies who had taken over their home and stripped them or freedoms or their home.

There were times when it was distance which got in the way of worshipping God through the festivals.

There was also the danger of traveling the roads where it was like most societies plagued with criminals.

HOMESICKNESS IS A SIGN OF LIFE

So this psalm is about a longing to be in the place where God symbolically dwells—>The TEMPLE

Commentators tell us this was a psalm or song of Zion, which means it was a song that was often sung by people who were travelling on their way to the temple to celebrate feasts and religious holidays. So it was a song that was declaring how the individual was homesick to go home and longing to be with the Lord.

That is why the writer makes these statements in the text…How lovely is your dwelling place…My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord…Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise!… 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.

It is great that the psalm writer is longing to get home to the temple, to be with God. I love what they writer says about the TEMPLE/The house of God. It is a place that provides strength. It is where we find God’s blessings. It is where God shines brightest. It is better there than anywhere else. And they feel at home there! They enter into worship of God and have been longing for it. They find joy! Amazing!

Do you long for the Lord like this?

—————(Pause)

The QUESTION/TROUBLE I have is why does the writer feel so distant from God in the first place? Have you ever felt distant from God? Is it that you have wandered? Is it that you have grown weary? Your job, family, marriage feels like it is circling the drain and about to go down the tube.

The Coaching Question: So you feel distant from God…What are you planning to do about it? Are you going to seek him, journey to be with him, spend time with him, or keep doing what you have always done. “if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.”

Sometimes the TROUBLE is even deeper than what is in the text…what if you are distant from God and you have no longing to be with him? It is in your head, but you have no yearning to get home to Him? If you never had the yearning and longing for the Lord, you don’t know what you are missing out on. You may see it in others, but never personally have had it. But if you had it and for some reason you have become numb, man you know you want it again. What do you do about it? Is there any sure path back to a passionate heart for God?

Sometimes we don’t find security in God, we search for it in our wealth or job.

Sometimes we don’t yearn to be home with God, we yearn to feel at home in this world.

Sometimes we treat entering into worship of God like a chore, instead of something we long for.

And there are people that due to age, distance, or health can no longer get out of their home that would trade anything to be able to

Imagine your life if you began to long for it for the first time or began to long for the Lord again…what would that look like?…

Imagine if you came to Sunday worship with a renewed sense of wonder at God’s majesty and glory. What if you saw God’s people as opportunities for miracles and not obstacles to your agenda. It might mean thinking LESS about what you get out of worship and instead what you put into worship.

(Say this with matter of fact energy) After all we don’t come here to worship ourselves, it is about HE who is to worship. And if you are focused more on the withdraw from worship than your deposit in worship… you/we are missing worship.

(Financial and Spiritual Problem) withdrawing more that depositing.

But this yearning we are talking about is more than just what happens when we gather together to worship on Sundays. It is more than what happens in the CHURCH. That is something we often get wrong and to be honest was something the people the text got wrong too, they were so concerned with God being tucked neatly in a place or location. And if they would just get there, that they would be with God.

THE YEARNING FOR GOD is a GOOD THING.

And the homesickness is not for a place, but for a person.

——Pause——

God’s presence is with us.

Matthew 28:20 “20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.””

Hebrews 13:5 “5 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.””

Joshua 1:9 “9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.””

Psalm 23:4 “4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

Matthew 1:23 “23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).”

The grace of God is not only with us when we are in this room. It is with us!

God’s presence is not locked up in this building. God’s presence is everywhere. And for sure it is in us.

The great life changing and world changing reality is when we realize that the Lord is with us when…

We are frustrated at work or home

We are at home hunting down hangars or mismatched socks for the millionth time.

When you are struggling to fall asleep.

When you are feeling like you have made the worst mistake ever. God is with you!

God is with us in the highs and the lows.

Conclusion:

OUR HOMESICKNESS WILL NEVER BE SATISFIED BY THIS WORLD.

(GIVE ALTAR INSTRUCTIONS)

One of the great revelations in life is realizing that we are never going to be fully satisfied by anything in this world.

Not by success. Not by comfort. Not by relationships. Not by money. Not by achievement.

We keep chasing. And chasing. And chasing.

And even when we catch what we’re chasing… it still doesn’t quiet the ache.

Why?

Because that ache isn’t a design flaw. It’s homesickness.

The psalmist in Psalm 84 wasn’t just missing a building. He was longing for home — for the presence of God. “My soul longs, yes, faints…” That is the cry of someone who knows where they truly belong.

And at some point in life, many of us have that moment — “I am an alien here.” “This world isn’t enough.” “I don’t belong here.”

Scripture says we are sojourners and exiles. We feel it because it’s true.

And when that realization comes, it becomes an invitation.

An invitation not to despair… but to surrender.

To stop demanding that this world give what only God can give. To stop expecting temporary things to provide eternal security. To stop treating worship like a duty and start seeing it as coming home.

That’s why songs resonate so deeply when they echo this longing:

This World Is Not My Home — “I’m just a passing through…”

Home — reminding us heaven is our true home.

“I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For” — even outside explicitly Christian worship, the human heart confesses the ache.

“I can only Imagine” - what it will like, when I walk, by your side.

That ache is pointing somewhere and to someone.

And here is the grace:

We don’t have to wait until heaven to experience His presence.

Because of Jesus — Immanuel — God with us, the presence the psalmist longed to travel toward now travels with us.

When you’re frustrated at work. When you’re exhausted at home. When you feel ashamed. When you feel alone at 2 a.m.

God is with you.

So yes — we long for our ultimate home. Yes — one day we will appear before God-in Zion as the psalmist writes.

But until then?

That homesickness you feel? It’s not weakness. It’s worship beginning to wake up.

And blessed — blessed — is the one who trusts in Him.

Today, here is the call…

Is there anyone who feels the longing for God for the very first time come and pray at these altars or with one of our prayer tream!

Is there anyone here who is beginning to long for God again and feels it awakening inside of them…come and pray at these altars or with one of our prayer team, and God will hear your prayers.

Is there someone here who has been chasing fulfillment in the world and knows in their head they need to make a change, but needs God to help them. Come and pray for God to help.