BROADCASTS.com

"How lovely is your dwelling place O Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God” (Psalm 84:1-2).

Yesterday, Pastor Anthony mentioned that we had been considering spending some time with the Old Testament prophets. Our idea was to dig around in some interesting but unfamiliar passages. We made these plans in mid-December. Then, we went into a second lock down and I went on a two-week vacation. We don’t talk when either of us is on vacation, giving each other space for Sabbath. But both of us were questioning if we needed to reconsider our plans.

We didn’t have time to lay any new plans. We received a few responses to his request for suggestions. Hopefully, more of you will give us ideas. In the meantime, I invite you to today consider Psalm 84.

Let’s enter the text with a simple question, “What do you want?”

Some of you may be looking in the refrigeration to get some breakfast. I’m not interested in what you want for breakfast. This is one of those annoyingly profound questions like when you get asked what you want written on your tombstone or what you want people to say about you at your funeral. What do you want for your life? or from your life?

I get irritated with stories in which a character immediately knows the answer to such a question. I find it depends on the day and the things happening around me. I'm not always sure if there is one thing that I really want.

But knowing what we want is important. Years ago, when it was still okay to say such things, G. K. Chesterton wrote, "Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God." The only difference between that person and the one who kneels to receive the Lord's Supper is that the former is looking for satisfaction in the wrong place. The former does not know that it is God who is being sought for.

It's the same with all our appetites and longings: a bigger house; a faster car; better make-up; successful children; political position.

We want many things. But getting these things doesn't satisfy. In fact, they tend to kill us. We humans have an infernal habit of mistaking the things God gives for the God who gives them. We tend to worship the things God gives, rather than God himself. As Paul once wrote, "They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator-who is forever praised! Amen" (Romans 1:25).

God made everything for His glory, to show off His greatness. The things He created all point back to Him. They remind us that He is our true home, our destination. Sin makes creatures our home rather than God to whom they point. Worshipping God's creation will be our death.

The psalmist knew this. He was away from Jerusalem and longed to be home. Not because he worshipped that city but because in Jerusalem was God's temple, God's presence on earth. That is where he encountered God. That was joy.

This is even truer for us, followers of Jesus. We are his temple. God is right here, where we are. But do we want him? Is he our joy?

In the long road through the wilderness of this pandemic, we can take either of two roads. On the one road, we focus on all the things that we can’t enjoy right now. We can feed our longing for them.

The other road is the one the psalmist took. Rather, than feeding his longings for stuff, he fed his longing for God. We can take that road too. We can ask the Spirit to sift our desires so that more and more we long for God. Then, when someone asks us that irritating question, “What do you want out of life?” we know our answer.

Let us pray that He will always be our joy and that we will always sing His praises and not the praises of the things He made.