Blessed, August 9th, 2026

Good morning fellowship and I hope you've had a good summer so far. I do want to welcome those of you in the chapel, those of you that may be online with us. If we haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Mark. I'm one of the pastors here at Fellowship. We're so glad that you're with us today, particularly maybe if this is your first time, we're so glad you're with us. We want to encourage you after the service to drop by the connection center. We'd love to get to know you and help you take your next steps here at Fellowship. Well, I know this time of year is a sad time for some of you because this next week starts school, right? And I recognize that which means that the fall is coming, which means that football season is coming. Yes, yeah, yeah. But anyway, I want to talk a little bit as we think about the fall, kind of where we're headed, preaching-wise, next week will still be. And our short series we're doing in Psalms, the following week will be Vision Sunday. Then we're moving into a series on the miracles of Jesus, which will be a really fun series. We want to encourage you to be a part of that. Then we'll study the book of Esther together, and then we'll close out the year looking at the Advent and having a little Christmas series together. So that's where we're headed. Today, we're in the second week of this short series

we're doing in the book of Psalms that we're calling blessed. And we are talking about what does a blessed life look like. And it's not what so often we mistakenly think of a blessed life looks like. It's not material things or success or control or sex and money. In fact, the fact of the matter is that really none of those created things can satisfy us or bring us the blessing that we long for in our heart. Last week, if you were here in Psalm one, we discovered that our life is blessed when we spend time with God and follow His word in our daily lives. And now here in Psalm 84, we see that our life is blessed when we spend time worshiping God with His people. When we spend time worshiping with God, that's where blessing and satisfaction in life can be found. If you haven't already, let me encourage you. Go ahead and take out your Bible or your Bible app. However you like to follow along and join me in Psalm 84. Psalm 84 is where we're gonna be today. If you do that, I wanna ask you this question. If you could be anywhere, what place would you wanna be? If you could be anywhere, where is the place that you wanna be? For me, that's Hawaii. I'll tell you, particularly on the hard days of life, I wanna be in Hawaii, the beach, the water, the beauty. There's just something about Hawaii

that I really love and enjoy. It's the place that I wanna be. All of us have somewhere that we wanna be. What is that place or that place where you want to be? What is that for you? In fact, last year on average, every American spent about $6,000 on travel. Now, you may be below that number, you may be above that number, but what that tells me is, is that there are a lot of people traveling and going somewhere else rather than the place that they are. That for all of us, there's this desire we have to be somewhere else other than where we find ourselves today. We wanna get away from it all. And so there's some place that we'd rather be. But the reality is, is that no matter how many cool places we may go to, we will never find a place where we're fully content, fully happy and fully satisfied. Why is it that even in all of our going and doing, we still feel, God. Fellowshiping with God, being in the presence of God, that's where blessing and satisfaction in this life is really found. Every other place you want to go, every other place you desire to be will fall short of being with God and enjoying Him. So this Psalm is going to use language that talks about God's courts and God's house, which is Old Testament language to describe being in the presence of God. Psalm 84 says before us the blessing of being in the one place that can fully satisfy our soul and that's being in the presence of God with His people. Psalm 84, let's read through this together, starting in verse 1. It says, "How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of Host, my soul longs. Yes, thanks for the courts of the Lord. My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home in the swallow, a nest for herself, where she may lay her young

at your altars. O Lord of Host, my king and my God, blessed are those who dwell in your house ever singing your praise, Salah. Blessed are those whose strength is in you and whose heart are the highways designed. As they go through the valley of Baca, they make it a place that springs the early rain, also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength. Each one appears before God in Zion. O Lord of Host, hear my prayer. Give ear, O God, of Jacob, Salah. Behold our shield, O God, look on the face of your anointed for a day in your courts, is better than a thousand elsewhere. I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a son and a shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of Host, blessed is the one who trusts in you. Now, I must confess to you as I read those words there in Psalm 84, "I want to long for God's presence like this, but I don't." Can you relate? I truly do. I want to long for God's presence like this in my life, but I don't. I mean, look at the words here. And the Psalmist talks about his soul is fainting for the courts of the Lord. When you got up this morning and you were getting ready for church, was your soul fainting with anticipation about being here? Maybe. I doubt it. Verse 10, the Psalmist talks about that better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. Is that true for you? Do you really believe that? That it's that one day with God, a day worshiping him with his people, is that really to you better than a thousand trips to the beach, better than a thousand golf rounds with your friends, better than a thousand meals at your favorite restaurants? I suspect not. I know that's not true in my life. So what Psalm 84 is going to do here is challenge and confront the weaknesses of our longings and encourage us and awaken us to a deeper desire, a deeper longing for the presence of God. So the question I want to ask this morning is how do we awaken a deeper longing for God in our lives? Well, I think Psalm 84 gives us four things that can develop or awaken a deeper hunger or longing for God in our lives. Let's talk about those. The first is this. We need to pay attention to our soul. If we want a deeper hunger, a deeper longing for God, we need to pay attention. says, "How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts, my soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord, my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God." The first thing we're asked to do is to pay attention to what our soul longs for. That thing that longs inside of you is your soul. That's what's longing inside of you. It's your soul that's

searching for purpose and meaning in this world. And we need to pay attention to our soul. And here's why that's so important because we're being shaped by the world that we live in. And the world is trying to satisfy its longings with earthly things. And many of these earthly things, in and of themselves, are not bad, they're not evil, but they can't satisfy the deepest longings of our soul. And we know this to be true, and yet there's something in us that believes if we could just get this one thing it would satisfy our soul. If we could just get in that one neighborhood, we could just get that one promotion, get that one new car, get into that one school, get that one new relationship, maybe then those longings that we feel in our soul, maybe, maybe then they would finally be satisfied. And we buy into this, don't we? And what the Psalm is telling us is that we need to pay attention to our soul. Because when we're attentive to our soul, here's what we realize, those longings in our soul can't be satisfied with material things or with experiences or with relationships, because they're so much deeper. There's nothing in this world that can fill up our soul. There's only one thing that can satisfy the longings of our soul, and that is God Himself. Only God can satisfy that longing that you have in your heart to know Him, to be with Him, to be in His presence. And until we pay attention to our soul, what we will do is just stay stuck in a doom loop of sorts, thinking that by indulging our appetites and desires, we can satisfy our longings. And by and large, that will just leave us in a place of emptiness and unsatisfied, because we were created for so much more. Our soul was created to be connected to the living God, to know Him, to be in His presence, and it's only God where our soul will find true rest and satisfaction. And that is what your soul and my soul is longing for. So how can we awaken a deeper hunger, a deeper longing for God? We need to pay attention to our soul. Our soul is longing for God. Our soul is longing for more in this life, and there's nothing in the material world that can meet that longing inside of you and inside of me. The second, though, we need to gather to worship God with His people. We need to gather to worship God with His people. Look how the psalmist continues. He says, "Even the sparrows find a home in the swallow and nest for herself, where she may lay her young at your altar's, O Lord of Host, my King and my God, blessed are those who dwell in your house ever singing your praise, Salah. What is Salah or Salah? You can pronounce it either. It's like pronouncing tomato or tomato. What

is Salah? Salah, we don't know for certain what it is, but what we believe and what most scholars believe it is, is that it is a pause or a time to reflect in the Psalms on what you just read. That's the place where you take a breath and you meditate on what you've just read in the Psalms. So when you see that, that's what Salah or Salah is communicating. And notice here in the verses that we just read, it talks about altars. This is talking about the temple that's in Jerusalem. And in the Old Testament, the presence of God dwelt only in the temple. That's where he resided. And so if you wanted to be in the presence of God, if you wanted to worship God, you had to travel to Jerusalem. And so the people of God in the Old Testament would regularly make a pilgrimage, a journey to Jerusalem for feasts and holidays to gather with his people in the presence of God because only the presence of God was in the temple to worship him and to celebrate who he was. And what the psalmist is doing is he's right now, he's away from Jerusalem and he is reflecting and reminiscing about the power and the joy of being in the presence of God and worshiping God. And he even says even the birds have it better than he does. Why? Because they've built nests probably up in the eaves of the temple. And every day they're coming in there and they're close to God. They're with God's people.

They're hearing the worship of God. And he's reflecting on that. He's talking about how blessed even these birds are. But how much more so is the blessing for God's people to come in to the presence of God and to worship him? See, the psalmist is reminding us that when we're in the place where God is worshiped, it awakens a deeper longing for God in us. In fact, I would imagine that's part of why you're here this morning. Because you know when you go to the place where God is worshiped, it awakens a longing for him in you. It stirs something in you. It awakens something in you that you can't find anywhere else. That's why you're here this morning. Because you know that when you go to the place where God is worshiped, it stirs something in you. Because you are in the presence of God. And it stirs a longing for God in you when you come to a place like this. And notice when we come to a place like this, we're told by the psalmist here that we sing praises to our God. It's right for us to praise God. And I would say regardless of our circumstances, that it's right to praise our God. To praise God in our suffering. It's right to sing to him in our prosperity. All seasons of life should evoke praise to God. Now, I want to stop here just for a moment

and speak to the men who are listening today, who don't sing in church. Some of you think that singing is for women. It's not something that men do. Some of you think because you sit in the back that what singing is, it's really for the people that are down front here. Some of you guys who don't sing in the church, the reason you don't sing, you got a terrible voice. You sing off key and I can relate to that, okay? It's the first day of men, I've gotten in a while, yes. But here's what we need to hear guys. And not just the guys, but the women that are listening today, all of us, kids, students, everybody, the Bible is clear that we are called as men, women, kids, students, everyone to sing praises to our God. Not just here in Psalm 84, but it's all over the Bible that our God is so good, our God is so great, our God is so wonderful that we can't contain ourselves. We want to sing praises to our God. Here's the way Ephesians 5, 19 says it, says speaking to one another with songs, hymns and songs from the Spirit. Listen to this, sing and make music from your heart to the Lord. [BLANK_AUDIO] Why would we want to sing to God? Because whether you want to acknowledge it or not, friend, everything that you are,

everything that you have is a gift from God Himself. Everything. James says every good and perfect gift comes from above. And so you have been a recipient of God's grace to you. And that ought to ready and steady your heart as you come in here. There should be a sense in which all of us as we come into this place, our hearts are ready to sing praises to our God. Why? Because He's worthy. And when we're singing together, what that does is it stirs in each of us a longing, a deeper longing for God, for who He is and what He's done. And listen, let me say one last thing to the guys before I move on here. And particularly those of you who are married or maybe have kids. If you want to be a spiritual leader and example to your wife and your kids, a very simple way to do that is to come in here and to sing praises to God. It's just a simple way to model that. I remember when I had kids at home, we would sit right up front here. And one of the things I would intentionally try to do in particular for my boys is I wanted them to see their dad sing praise to their God. I think it's a very simple thing we can do. But it communicates something about the importance that there's only one king. There's only one that is worthy of worship. And that's our God. And he's worthy of praise when we get in here and when we praise him in that way, there's a hunger that develops inside of us. You with me? And notice what happens as we continue here in verse 5. It says, "Blessed are those whose strength is in you and whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs. The early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength.

Each one appears before God in Zion." Now, as I said a moment ago, this is a pilgrimage song. It's recounting the journey of going up to Jerusalem to the place where the temple was, where God dwelt. And this journey was a repeated pattern in the life of the people of God. They were regularly making their way to Jerusalem, to worship God, to be with His people, to sing to Him, to worship Him. And what the psalmist is saying is when you do that, what happens is the highways of Zion get formed in your heart. Do you see that? Now, Zion is where God was in the Old Testament. The point being is that the things we do repeatedly, over and over again, have a way of forming a highway or a pathway in our heart to God. That those things over time have a way of shaping and forming who we are, because it's opening up our heart, our highway to God. And you may not even realize this, but this has happened to you before. It happened to me on Thursday. I woke up and on my mind were the lyrics of a song that we sang the Sunday before, that personally I had never sung before, the song in a habit. Now, why were those lyrics on my mind? Because time and time again, I'm coming in here. We're worshiping together. We're hearing the Word together. We're singing together, and over time what those things do is they build a highway in our heart to God. And over time, those repeated things begin to show up. that God has called us to be. By the way, that's why it's incredibly important that we have a regular rhythm of coming to church. Because this is one of the places,

it's not the only place, but this is one of the places where God opens up the highway of our heart to Him, where we can experience the presence of God and grow in our hunger and our longing for God. It's in a place like this. As we gather together, as we encourage each other, as we hear the word together, it is working and forming and shaping the pathways and the highways and the byways of our heart and our life. And over time, what that does is it opens up the highways to Zion. So how do we develop a deeper longing for God? Well, the psalmist says we pay attention to our soul. We gather with others to worship God. And then third, we walk in God's ways. We walk in God's ways. Look at verse 11, it says, for the Lord God is a son and a shield, the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, bless it is the one who trusts in you. Now, I'm not gonna say a lot about this point because we're gonna talk a lot about it next week, but the point that the psalmist is making here is that when we walk in God's ways, when we trust in Him, we experience blessing. When we don't walk in God's ways, we don't obey God, we don't trust in Him, we don't experience that blessing. And so what the psalmist is acknowledging is that obedience to God, obedience to His word,

walking in His ways, it has a way of awakening a deeper longing for God in our lives. Do you know why? Because what happens is when you live in obedience to God and you are walking in His ways, what you begin to see is the blessings and the flourishing that happens in your life as you're walking in obedience to God. And that makes you, it gives you a desire that you have to walk more and more in His ways. And to draw closer and closer to God gives you a deeper longing for who He is and what He's done. So out of that obedience to God comes blessing, a deeper longing for who God is. So how do we awaken this deeper longing for God that this psalmist talking about? Well, one of the ways we do that is we're constantly paying attention to our soul. We walk in His ways. I would add that we're regularly gathering to worship Him with His people. And then last, but certainly not least is this, we need to experience God's presence, experience God's presence. The psalmist says that this way, verse eight, O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer, give ear, O Jake, God of Jacob, behold our shield O God, look on the face of your anointed for the, a day in your courts is better than 1,000 elsewhere.

I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. Now, I want you to notice this is a prayer that God's people are praying. By the way, that's what the psalms are. The psalms are a prayer book for God's people. But specifically, they are praying that God would look on the face of His anointed. See that there in verse nine? Well, who were the anointed in the Old Testament? It was the kings, the priest, and the prophets. All of those people were anointed with oil as a symbol of God's presence being on them. And they all helped to mediate God's presence to God's people in the Old Testament. So what the kings did is the kings, worship of God. They were the anointed ones of the Old Testament. But what's interesting here in verse 9 is that Hebrew word that's translated, anointed, is the same word in Hebrew for Messiah. Later on, the Greek term will be Christ, which means anointed one. And Jesus is the anointed one of God. Friends, in Jesus Christ, we have a Messiah who mediates for us, where now we can freely come to God. We no longer need anyone to mediate the presence of God for us. Why? Because the veil was torn when Jesus was crucified on the cross. Now we have the greatest King, the greatest prophet, the greatest priest in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the anointed one, in the Old Testament being God's presence, you had to travel to Zion, you had to go to Jerusalem where God was.

But now God has come to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. God's anointed one has come, and He brings us into the presence of God. The closer we get to Jesus, the more we see His love, the more we see what He's done for us. The deeper our longing for God, our hunger for God will be. I want to close with a question today. You'll see it there on your outline. Where do we go to experience God's presence? Where do we go to do that? Well first, let me say this, the Holy Spirit dwells in the people of God, which means that God's dwelling place is no longer in a temple. If you're a follower of Christ, you are the temple of the living God. God's presence is in you. So God's presence is in us, in the person of the Holy Spirit. Paul said it this way in 1 Corinthians 3, he says, "Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that what?" God's Spirit, listen to this, dwells in who, you, me. Now what does that mean? That means that God's presence is with you everywhere you are and everywhere you go. That God's Spirit, His presence is always working to teach you, to comfort you, to change you, to convict you, to encourage you, that His Spirit, when you think about where do I have to go to experience it, His Spirit is in you, it's in me. But what that also means is that when God's people gather in a place like this, God's Spirit is here in this place. See God's presence is in the place where His people are gathered. Let me say that again. God's presence is in the place where His people are gathered. So God's presence, to experience that presence, it's in you, but also when you come to a place like this called fellowship, because God's people are here and they're filled with His Spirit, His presence is here.

Jesus said it this way in Matthew 1820. He said, "For where two or three are gathered in my name," listen to His words, "there I am among them." Jesus is here, His presence is here. Let me ask you, do you know You, you, you filled with the Spirit, is what makes this place special. This room is awesome and as cool as it is. And I've been in here when there's nobody in here. There's no power in it because God's people aren't here. The power in this room is you, it's me. Filled with the presence of God through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where the power is. There's power when we gather because God's here. Jesus is here, His presence is here. That's where the power is. And so even when we get here, we get to experience His power. That's what makes this place so awesome is you, it's me. And by the way, that's why it matters so much that we gather on Sundays and that we don't treat church like a spectator sport. You're not here to listen to a good talk. You're not here to watch a bunch of talented musicians play their instruments. You're here to actively minister God's presence to one another. That's what we're here for. When we gather, we're ministering God's presence to one another. Which means when you pray with somebody on Sunday, you're ministering His presence. When you sing praises to God and the person sitting next to you

is going through an intense time of suffering and doesn't feel like praising the God, you don't realize in that moment you're ministering God's presence to them. When you lead a Bible lesson in FSK, you're ministering God's presence to those kids. When you greet someone warmly here in the Lord Jesus, you are ministering His presence to them. When you offer an encouraging word to a struggling friend here, you are ministering God's presence. That's what we do here fellowship. We gather here to minister His presence to one another, to experience the power of His presence. It's a presence that's in you. It's a presence that's in me and there's power when we come together to worship Him together. And what that does is it builds a deeper longing and hunger in our hearts and our lives for God. I'm going to tell you what happens when you're in a church, where everybody there is ministering God's presence to one another. That's an exciting place to be. Men, it's exhilarating. It's joyful. And it's exactly why the psalmist says here, and better is one day in your courts than 1,000 elsewhere. Man, why would we want to be anywhere else? Then right where God is with His people experiencing the power of His presence. Nothing's better than that.

Nothing can satisfy our souls. Nothing can make us content. But that, in His presence, with His people, worshiping Him. Then you want a deeper longing for God, pay attention to your soul, walk in His ways, regularly come into a place like this, gather with His people and worship Him, and experience His presence. And what you'll find is, over time you'll have a deeper hunger and a deeper longing for God that maybe you too will be able to say better is one day in the courts of God than 1,000 elsewhere. Let's pray together. Father, we come to You right now just by way of confession. 'Cause for so many of us, we try to feel the longings of our soul with created things, things that we think will satisfy us, whether it's money or a relationship or material things. And oftentimes we know better, and yet there's something inside of us that just thinks, man, that one thing is gonna fill me up. Lord, would You forgive us? to hunger for more of you. Would you give us a deeper longing for you, God, that we too would be able to declare and say that better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. Give us a heart that longs for you. And Lord, would you encourage and strengthen us that we would be active in ministering your presence to one another and that you would work in and through that

for the glory of your name. God, you and you alone are worthy of praise. We give you our lives, we give you all of who we are, you are worthy of our praise and our life. Would you fill us up even now with your presence in Jesus' name, amen. Thanks again for listening to the Word of God. We are blessed to reach you throughout the week through whatever platform you're listening on. If you're needing prayer or you want to talk to someone about your walk with Jesus, reach out to us at fellowshipar.com/contact. Have a great week. (upbeat music)