A Heart Set on Pilgrimage

Psalm 84 foreshadows the spiritual pilgrimage Christians make in their journey of sanctification.

– SERMON TRANSCRIPT –

I. Introduction: The Christian Life a Pilgrimage

I like to ask that you take your copy of the Word of God and look at Psalm 84. We’re in between series right now, and I thought it would be good for us to look at some psalms, and Psalm 84 is one of my favorites. One of my favorite books in the entire world is Pilgrim’s Progress. I know a man, my church history professor, who read it every year for 50 years. Now you might think what kind of book would be worth that kind of attention, but the beauty of the book is that it lays out the Christian life as a pilgrimage that just begins when we come to personal faith in Christ and then continues long after that until at last we cross the river and reach the Celestial City, and so there’s lots of difficulties and troubles along the way. 

The idea of a pilgrim is a little bit foreign to us, it shouldn’t be, but perhaps it is. The ideas of pilgrimage and the journeying or traveling, connected in some way with religious observance is known all over the world and to all different religions of the world. In Ancient Greece, the pagan religions had their pilgrimages. You remember in Acts 19, the big chant, ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.’ What that meant was the temple, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was a great place to go worship. People would travel from miles away to go see this temple and to worship Artemis there. It was a pilgrimage. Islam has a pilgrimage, it’s called the Hajj, and anyone that makes it is a Hajji. It’s one of the five pillars of Islam, and if you’re a faithful Muslim and you’re able-bodied and have the resources to make it once in your life, you have to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. Hindus travel to the Ganges River to wash or to bathe in what they consider to be it sacred waters. When Christine and I were living in Japan, we lived on a sacred Buddhist island of Shikoku, and there were 88 Buddhist temples. Pilgrims would come and they would be dressed in certain interesting clothes with these straw hats and  canes, and they had bells and little bags, talismans on the end of their canes, and they would go from place to place. Many of them were Westerners, as a matter of fact. 

Interesting, if you go to a search engine and type in Pilgrim’s Progress, you’re going to end up with www.dharmatours.org and it’s a Buddhist pilgrimage that you can go on there. I was very distressed, so what you need to do is you need to just flood the sites that go to Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and get it back up to number one, because I don’t want Dharma Tours to be the number one “Pilgrim’s Progress.” But pilgrimages are part of religions all over the world. Medieval Catholicism had their pilgrimages as well, as pilgrims would travel to relics and to Rome, for example, to see the Via Dolorosa or to climb on their knees up the holy staircase. Canterbury Tales by Chaucer is stories that are told along the road of medieval pilgrims as they traveled to Canterbury, so the idea of pilgrimage is really well familiar to us. The basic idea of a pilgrimage is the locality of deity. In some sense, the god that you’re worshipping is more here than he is there, and you have to go to where he is and worship, or that there is holy ground or a holy place set apart by God, and you travel there and you worship.

Evangelical Christianity, after the ministry of Christ, has rightly rejected the idea that God is more here than there, and rejected the idea of a physical pilgrimage. But along with that, modern evangelicalism, I think in some sense, has lost the sense of a true spiritual pilgrimage. Christianity was originally called “The Way,” I think probably after Jesus’ statement, “I am the way.” in John 14:6. But evangelicalism doesn’t know much about the journey, it doesn’t know much about “the way”, it seems static. The only journey that you make might be coming forward at a revival, you would come out of your pews and come forward, and once that journey has been made, there’s no more journey to be made, you’re saved and it’s set, and there’s nothing more. But we’ve learned  that salvation’s far more than just the beginning of it, far more than justification.

I think the Puritans, of all the movements in church history, had probably the clearest vision of sanctification, of a journeying that begins with original saving faith with justification, but then travels on through sanctification, and thus Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, I think stands picturesquely to talk to us about the Christian life, the pilgrimage, through many dangers, toils and snares. As Bunyan put it, Christian at last makes it to Celestial City, through the Slough of Despond, the Hill Difficulty, the Valley of Humiliation where he battled Apollyon, through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, through Vanity Fair and Doubting Castle he fought his battles, also the pleasant stops of refreshment as well, and he made a journey. The Christian life is indeed a pilgrimage.

II. Old Covenant Shadow: A Pilgrimage to Zion 

Psalm 84 is a pilgrim song,  and it’s established within the Old Covenant shadow of the temple sacrificial system and the law of Moses. The law of Moses ordained a pilgrimage three times a year. The men of Israel would get up from their homes and  would travel to the place that God had chosen for them, the central place, the worship place, where they would all go. The Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Harvest and Firstfruits, and the Feast of Ingathering, these are the three mentioned in Exodus 23:14-17. Deuteronomy clarified the need to travel to a specific place that God would choose from among the tribes that eventually came to be Jerusalem. At that point, originally it was a tabernacle, it was a movable tent, but that tent would find its rest in a certain place among the 12 tribes, the tribe of Judah in the end, in Jerusalem, the City of David, would be that place.

Eventually, the movement went from tabernacle to temple when David sitting in a palace of cedar, smelling the aroma from those freshly cut cedar panel said, “Here am I living in a palace of cedar, and God’s ark is in a tent.”  Nathan the prophet said, “Do whatever is on your heart.” David wanted to build a permanent resting place for God, the Temple. Now, we know that Solomon was the one that built the temple. But the temple of Solomon was not imposing in its size,  it really wasn’t that large itself, but it was exquisite in its quality, the finest craftsmanship and the best materials went into it. It was inlaid with gold and overlaid with gold and just meticulously crafted so much so that when the restoration temple was built after the Jews had come back from Babylon, the temple at Haggai, they were weeping and crying over how ugly and small it seemed to be compared to Solomon’s temple, which was so ornate and lavish. So, it was an incredible thing, exquisite in beauty, and it had been supernaturally filled with the glory of God, when Solomon dedicated it in 1 Kings 8:11.

The glory cloud of the Lord came down, descended and filled the whole temple with smoke and with glory. It said in 1 Kings 8:11, the priest could not perform their service because of the cloud of the glory of the Lord filled the temple. So it was to this temple that the pilgrims made their pilgrimage. They were traveling from Dan to Beersheba, they would leave their farms and their villages, they would leave behind their work, and they would get on the road and start to walk. They would travel for these feasts, they would travel the highways and the byways of the promised land leading to Mount Zion, and because Jerusalem was elevated, physically elevated, it was a mountain, they were singing what they called Songs of Ascents, and as they were ascending the mountains, they would sing these. You might note in Psalm 120 through 134, these are all labeled a song of ascent, these would be psalms that they would sing as they would travel together. I think Psalm 84 fits in that class, in that category. 

Now, if we look at the Psalm, I want to break it apart into four parts: In verse 1-4, we see a yearning for the temple that is really a yearning for God; in verse 5-7, we see a pilgrimage to the temple, really a pilgrimage to God; in verse 8 and 9, we see a prayer for the anointed king that he would be blessed by God; and then verse 10-12, celebration of life at the temple, a life that is also blessed by God. Let’s look at the first subsection, and that’s yearning for the temple, really a yearning for God in verse 1-4. “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. Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young-a place near Your altar, O Lord Almighty, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; they are ever praising You.” 

You see the yearning there, a yearning to be at the temple. And more than that, not just because, “Oh, look at such magnificent stones, and look at the gold.” No, the psalmist wants to be near God. It’s a yearning to be near God. The psalmist remembers past pilgrimages, three times a year they would go up and the memory is stirred by the temple’s spectacular beauty, by the memories of the past, and more than that the temple reminds the singer of the psalm of God, and just to be near God. The temple represents fellowship with the Lord Almighty, and so the psalmist’s soul is deeply stirred with a hunger for fellowship with God.

Verse 2, again, “My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” I think at some point in his many pilgrimages up there, he noticed some details in the temple. He noticed that the sparrow and the swallow had made nests perhaps up in the rafter or some place, is nothing sacred. Well, of course, it’s sacred but the birds, they’re going to do what comes naturally and so they built a nest. But he looked at that very positively, even the sparrow and the swallow feel peaceful and comfortable to be here. No bird, no female bird is going to build a nest where she doesn’t feel comfortable and safe and secure, and so it’s a place of safety.

If you look biblically at the sparrow, the sparrow is, in one place, a symbol of worthlessness. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?” said the Lord. “And yet none of them falls to the ground apart from the will of your Father.” They’re a symbol of worthlessness, in one sense. The swallow is a symbol of restlessness as they are able to travel across the oceans. They’re able to wing their flights for hundreds of miles without stopping, without resting. But here the sparrow feels safe and secure and finds her worth as it were, being with God, and the swallow at last has found a home, a place to make a nest, a place of comfort. In effect, as the psalmist looks at these birds, the psalmist is thinking, “Oh, I would love to be one of those, just here all the time, that I wouldn’t ever have to go back. I wouldn’t have to keep working the fields and doing my life; just to be near you O Lord, I would love to be near You all the time.” 

So the pilgrim began his pilgrimage and traveled up toward Jerusalem.  In verse 5-7, he’s making his pilgrimage and thinking about it. “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.” Now, a pilgrimage like this is going to take physical strength, it’s going to be a long journey, and it’s going to be a journey up a mountain and so they’ve got to have physical strength. So he says, “Blessed are those whose strength is in you,” and they go from strength to strength. There’s a certain strength that’s needed for the pilgrimage and this strength is coming from God himself.  

The commitment to the pilgrimage comes from the heart. Verse 5, “Blessed are those who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.” The Hebrew word for “pilgrimage” is really highways. They’ve set their hearts on the highways. The highways back then would be kind of curved with ditches on either side for the rain to run off. We have a far more advanced highway technology than they did, but these were good roads, and the psalmist is saying that the pilgrim has set his heart on the road. He’s thinking about the traveling and the journeying, and all those roads that led up to the temple in  Jerusalem. Blessed is the one who set his heart on making that journey, not grudging, not irritated by it, for God loves a cheerful giver, “glad to go, looking forward to it.” Blessed is the one who comes at it with that attitude.

It says in verse 6, as they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs, the autumn rains also cover it with pools. The Valley of Baca is probably related to the Hebrew word for weeping, “boking”. They’re going through the valley of weeping, and even there, they make it a place of blessing, they make it a place of springs, and the autumn rains covers with pool. So even as the journey is difficult, even if as it’s trying, they’re able, through their faith and their commitment to God, to turn it into a place of blessing.

The third subsection is in verse 8-9. “Hear my prayer, O Lord God Almighty; listen to me, O God of Jacob. Look upon our shield, O God; look with favor on your anointed one.” I want you to realize as they’re traveling, of course, they’re not going to be traveling alone, there’s going to be a huge community of people going up. That’s where Canterbury Tales came from because they were telling stories and exchanging anecdotes and singing songs together as they went. There’s a real time of community building, you can well imagine. Look at verse 7, “They go from strength to strength till each appears before God in Zion.” Nobody gets left behind. You can imagine if somebody’s getting a little weak, they might even be physically carried up. There’s a sense of community there, a sense of togetherness, and as they’re doing that, they must think probably about their nation and about what’s going on, and they want to pray for their leader, much as we prayed for our President on Thursday, the National Day of Prayer, they would pray for their king. Look at verse 8 and 9, “Hear my prayer, O Lord God Almighty; listen to me, O God of Jacob. Look upon our shield, O God; look with favor on your anointed one.” Now, the word “shield”[magen], sometimes just means physical shield, but it is also frequently a metaphor for a king. It means a protector, a provider, a benefactor, who sets himself up in a position where he can take care of his people. He’s going to protect them militarily and fight their battles for them, and with all the booty and the plunder that’s coming back in, the people are going to get blessed. So a prayer for the protection of the shield, the king, is a protection, a prayer for protection for the whole nation. It says, “look with favor on your anointed one.” The word means messiah, or the Greek word would be the Christ. So it’s really talking about the Davidic king who was anointed to take the place of his Davidic father, with the lineage going down. This is a prayer for the king.

The fourth subsection, we see in verse 10-12, is a celebration of life at the temple, blessed by God. Verse 10, “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. For the Lord God is a sun and shield, the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless. O Lord Almighty, Blessed is the man who trusts in you.” This was just a celebration of the total superiority of a life near God, it’s better than anything else. I’d rather be an hourly worker in effect on the temple, I’d rather just be a doorkeeper.  It’s better to be a doorkeeper in the house of God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.  But it’s saying more than that, it’s saying it’s just a superior life to be near God, it’s better than anything. It’s better to do that than to dwell in tents of the wicked. We see also the overwhelmingly generous provision of God. In verse 11 we see the Lord God is really our shield.” I mentioned that word “shield”. God’s our king, the Lord God is our protector, he is our benefactor. He’s the one sitting up on his throne in heaven, giving us everything we need. “The Lord is a sun and a shield. He bestows favor and honor,” in the NIV. We’ll talk more about that in a moment. But then it says, “No good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.” What a magnificent promise. “No good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.”  God is never stingy.

Later in Romans 8, the Apostle Paul would say, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him lavishly or graciously give us all things?” He wouldn’t hold back Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, but gave Him up for us. He is generous, He’s never stingy, and so no good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly. Satan constantly temps those on pilgrimage to talk about how tough their life is, “think about all that you’ve sacrificed, all that you’ve given up in order to get on pilgrimage.” How can we ever say that? Like CT Studd said, “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice I make would be too great for him.”  David Livingston said, “How can I talk about sacrifice, when I consider what Jesus Christ has done for me?” So, verse 11 is a reminder that no good thing does He withhold from those who are making His Pilgrim walk. Ultimately, this is a life of faith and trust in God.

Verse 12, “O Lord Almighty, Blessed is the man who trusts in you.” Now, scripture is totally, and beautifully consistent, isn’t it? What is going to save your soul? Faith in Christ alone. It is faith alone that has always saved.  Verse 12 is an old covenant shadow testimony to that again, as we get again and again in Scripture. It is faith. Blessed is the man who trusts in you. This is what justifies. 

Now, this is our Old Covenant understanding of Psalm 84. The pilgrimage is making it’s way from the outskirts of the Promised Land, from Dan to Beersheba, as they’re going up, they’re in a community of other Jews, they’re heading up to the physical temple, they’re going to offer animal sacrifices up there, they’re singing this song and other songs as they go, they’re celebrating, they’re praying for their Davidic king, they’re praying for his health and well-being, they’re celebrating their life together with God. That’s the Old Covenant. 

III. New Covenant Reality: Christ 

But we’ve gone a little further, haven’t we, than that? We’ve seen some New Covenant fulfillment, so that the Old Covenant is just shadow. We have the reality, and the reality is Christ Himself. So we come to Psalm 84 as Christians, not as Old Covenant Jews, but as Christians saying, “Tell me of the fulfillment of Psalm 84. Tell me of the fulfillment who is Christ.” You see, Christ is the temple, and Christ is the sacrificial system. That was just shadow, the reality is Christ Himself.  Moses saw the original vision of the Tabernacle, and David later would see a heavenly vision of the temple. Both of them had a vision, and both of them saw a heavenly reality, and the temple was just a shadow or a dim reflection of that heavenly reality. It was under God the best they could do physically, and it was just how God wanted it to be, there was nothing wrong with it, but it was just a shadow. An earthly physical replica of the heavenly reality. Hebrews 8:1-5 tells us this, “Earthly High Priests serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and a shadow of what is in heaven.” Did you hear that? That’s where they serve. They serve at a sanctuary that’s just a copy, and it’s a shadow of the true reality that’s in heaven. That is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the Tabernacle, “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.” Did you hear that?  God showed Moses a pattern for the tabernacle, and later he would show David a pattern for the temple. Now, Christ’s death, His physical death on the cross was consistently pre-figured by all of these animal sacrifices as those pilgrims would go up to the temple and then they’d offer their blood sacrifices when the priest would shed the blood of an animal, every time that happened, it was a shadow pointing ahead to the future death of the Lamb of God on the cross. When Jesus died on the cross, when his blood was shed on the cross, He fulfilled forever all animal sacrifice, so we don’t offer animal sacrifice here. It’s been fulfilled in Christ. Because the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin, but the blood of Jesus, the incarnate son of God could take away sins. He is the fulfillment of the temple, and He is the fulfillment of the sacrificial system. 

What do I mean when I say He’s the fulfillment of the temple?  Jesus, after he cleansed the temple, they came and talked to him about it, and they said, “By what authority are you doing this? What sign can you give us so that we can know you have the right to cleanse the temple?” He said, “Here is the sign. Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up.” They said, “It’s taken 46 years to build this temple, and you’re going to raise it up in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of, was His body. Jesus’s body is the temple of God. It’s the place of meeting between sinners and a holy God. That’s where we meet God, the body of Jesus Christ. So says Hebrews 10:19-22, which actually goes right into the Holy of Holies on the temple, “Therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way, opened for us through the curtain, that is his body, let us… And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith.”  Jesus, His body is the temple, His blood fulfills the sacrificial system, therefore, we do not make a physical pilgrimage anywhere. We don’t need to go to Jerusalem, we don’t need to sing the song of a sense physically as we travel up to the Temple Mount, we don’t need to do that anymore, it’s been fulfilled in Jesus. As a matter of fact, he told us it would be. 

In John Chapter 4 as he’s talking to the Samaritan woman at the well, he brings up her sin, she didn’t want to talk about that, so she said, “You know, our fathers say that we should worship here on this mountain, Mt Gerizim, and you Jews say we should worship over in the Temple Mount, Mount Zion, Jerusalem. Now, which is right? Since we’re going to argue together.” Jesus as usual gave a shocking answer, He always went so much higher above the tough questions of the day.  He said, “Woman, believe me, the time is coming when You will worship neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know, but we Jews worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.” You know what that means? There’s not going to be one locus, one place of worship for Christians. God is everywhere, and He can be worshipped anywhere by somebody who’s going to worship in spirit and in truth. It’s no longer a single place for our pilgrimage.

The pilgrims of Plimoth Plantation, we call them the pilgrims because they were on a religious journey, but interestingly enough, they were traveling away from all the population centres. They were going away from all the shrines, and all the things. All they wanted was a howling wilderness, to just get away. Why? Because God is everywhere. They were  physically away, but  spiritually. toward. Do you see that? They were willing to set up shop on Cape Cod in December. Tough, tough Cape Cod in December. But they didn’t care, because what they wanted was to get away from the harassment of England and the decadence of Holland. There’s no physical place we travel in our pilgrimage.

But does that mean there’s no pilgrimage for us? Does that mean there’s no spiritual journey to be traveled? Listen to the words that Jesus spoke the night before he was killed. John 14, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, trust in God, trust also in me, in my father’s house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you for I’m going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me so that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I’m going.” I’ll say that again. “You know the way to the place where I’m going.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we don’t know where you’re going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Is that not a pilgrimage? Is there not a journey to be traveled? Is there not a destination? “My Father’s house.”  And even better destination, The Father Himself. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” He is the destination of the pilgrimage. 

IV. Future Perfection: Heavenly Glory

What is the way? Jesus said, “You know the way, you know it.” He never misspoke. You know the way to the place. Jesus is the road to Zion, He is the road, He’s the way that we travel along the way. The earthly pilgrimage is fulfilled, just as the temple and the animal sacrifice was fulfilled, all of it fulfilled in Christ. Now, there’s still yet a future fulfillment, isn’t there? Because both the physical temple, being a copy and shadow, and our present spiritual internal journey that we’re traveling, both of them, are pointing ahead to something yet future, aren’t they? Something that none of us has experienced except by faith by reading Scripture. Look at verse 11 in Psalm 84, the NAS has it this way, “For the Lord God is a sun and shield… ,the Lord gives grace and glory. Grace and glory. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.” Now, this is a beautiful thing, isn’t it? The perfection of the glory of Heaven is so radiant and so beautiful that words can’t describe it, Solomon’s  gold-covered temple could never adequately reflect the glory of God. Even as beautiful as that was, the Psalmist is saying, “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord almighty. Oh, just to see it again.” That’s still just a physical reflection, a dim reflection, a copy and a shadow. 

What does the heavenly one look like? Do you ever wonder about that? What does it look like? Just to see it. No earthly beauty could compare with the beauty of the glorified Christ. We were studying in our International Sunday school today, John 9, the man born blind. We brought up the story of Fanny Crosby, who was born blind as well, and they were asking her about the difficulty. She wrote all these beautiful hymns, she said, “I have one advantage over all those that have been sighted all their lives, and that is, that the first sight I see will be the face of Jesus Christ.” Isn’t that spectacular? But all of us who are believers, we all know that we haven’t seen anything yet, and so we’re looking ahead to a future glory.  Jesus in His earthly ministry was a kind of glory. It says, “The Lord God is a sun and shield.” Concerning his physical ministry, it says in Hebrews 1:3, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory, and the exact representation of His being.” 

But how much more will it be in the future heavenly Jerusalem? Turn in your Bibles to Revelation 21, “This is the heavenly glory of the future city of God and the future temple, such as it will be.” Revelation 21:22-23 says, “I did not see a temple in the city.” Stop there, “I didn’t see a temple.” Why? “Because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” There’s no need for a temple building, because God will be the temple. The Lord will be the temple, the Lamb of God will be its temple. Verse 23, “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light and the Lamb is its lamp.” This is the perfect fulfillment of the Lord as a sun and a shield. Do you see that? Jesus will be the sun then.  

I’ve talked in apologetics to people that struggle with the role of science in faith and how old the universe is and all that, and they point out a discrepancy in Genesis 1, the six-day creation. They say, “Look, You know, God created light in the first day, but he didn’t create the sun until the fourth day. Big problem.” I’m saying, “I don’t see the problem.” You see, in the future, in Jerusalem, there will not  be a sun. God is able to do light even without a sun.” Did you know that?  If man can do it down in a dark basement, turn on an electric light,  God can do light without a sun. So in the future,  the glory of Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem, there’ll be no sun. Jesus will be the sun, the glory of God will be its lamp. It says also, “The eternal dwelling place will be in perfect proximity to God.” Remember the swallow and the sparrow, they’re close to God. How good is that to be close to God? That’s nothing compared to the future promise. Look again in Revelation 21:10-11, “And he carried me away in the spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a Jasper, clear as crystal.”

We see the heavenly Jerusalem and the earthly coming together perfectly, a perfect union of heaven and earth, a fulfillment of the Lord’s Prayer. “May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” A complete fulfillment of the kingdom of God yet to come. Then he describes the beauty of that place in Revelation 21:18-21, “The wall of the city was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass.” Meditate on that. “The foundation of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. The great street of the city was a pure gold like transparent glass.” I can never stop being a scientist.  I just said, “Do we have all the colors of the spectrum here?” We do. Red is there in sapphire, orange is there in chrysolite, yellow in topaz, Green in emerald, Blue in beryl, Indigo is jacinth, Violet in the amethyst. So basically, the spectacular radiant colors are in the foundation of the walls of Jerusalem, and everything is transparent gold. Now, what is that? What is transparent gold? I don’t know, but that’s what it is, up there in heaven. Somehow the light from the glory of Christ just permeates everything, including you and me. It says, “The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” But notice, there is no beauty, no light, no color, apart from God and the Lamb. It’s all His glory, and nobody is up there saying, “Hey, I look good today, don’t I? Do you see my threads, these look good, don’t they? Because everybody is going to be like that, and it won’t be our glory. It’s all going to be His glory permeating so beautifully through the whole thing. Go back to Psalm 84:11, “For the Lord God is a sun and shield, the Lord gives grace and glory, no good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless.” First he gives grace. And then what? Then he gives glory. You don’t get the glory without the grace. If you haven’t come to faith in Christ, you’re not getting any glory. But if you come to faith in Christ, you travel from glory into ever-increasing glory. And God gives it all. That’s your pilgrimage, “From glory to glory.”  All of it is by grace. The Lord gives it. He gives grace, and he gives glory. No good thing does He withhold from you as you’re making your pilgrimage, you do it by faith in Christ alone. Verse 12, “O Lord Almighty, Blessed is the man who trusts in you from faith to faith.” That’s what we get. By trust in Christ alone, we make this pilgrimage. And ultimately better than the sparrow, and better than the swallow, and better than the door keeper at the house of God, and better than the sons of Korah who wrote it and sang it, better than all of those. We will not just be there as door keepers, and birds, and pillars and all that, but we will be there as beloved, adopted sons and daughters of God. Welcome into the very temple of God. That’s our future. Proximity will be perfect. Revelation 21:3 says, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be his people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.” Revelation 22:3-4, “The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city and his servants will serve Him. They will see His face and His name will be on their foreheads.” That, brothers and sisters is the destination of our pilgrimage. That’s where we’re going. 

V. Present Application: Set Your Heart on Pilgrimage

What application can we take from Psalm 84? Very simply, set your heart on this pilgrimage. That’s it. Set your heart on it. Let it be your hope, your desire, your dream, the organizing feature of your life, this pilgrimage, a pilgrimage characterized by a yearning for Christ’s heavenly glory. John Flavel,a Puritan, put it this way, “Is Jesus Christ altogether lovely? Then I beseech you to set your souls upon this lovely Jesus. I am sure such an object as has been here represented would compel love from the coldest breast and the hardest heart. Away with those empty nothings, away with this vain deceitful world, which deserves not the 1000th part of the love you give it. Let all stand aside and give way to Christ. Oh, if only you knew His worth and Excellency, what he is in himself, what he has done for you, and what he deserved from you, you would need no arguments of mind to persuade you to love him. Esteem nothing lovely, except as it is enjoyed in Christ, or for the sake of Christ. Set your heart on a pilgrimage that’s totally focused on Christ.”  

Secondly, a pilgrimage characterized by trusting in Christ alone. We don’t just walk the aisle, trust Christ and then never trust Him again. That’s just the first day of a repentance and faith that lasts the rest of your life. We make this journey from faith to faith, to faith to faith, day after day, and that faith is sustained by Jesus Christ, our great high priest.  

Thirdly, a pilgrimage that is strengthened daily by Christ’s power. Verse 5 through 7 says, “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who set their hearts in pilgrimage, they go from strength to strength, and each appears before God in Zion.” Does it take strength to lead the Christian life? Yes, it does. Do you ever get weary? You wake up and say, “How am I going to do it again today? Fighting sin, struggling with temptation, walking a holy, upright life in this sinful world. How am I going to do it?” The strength comes from God alone. That’s the pilgrimage.  

Fourth, a pilgrimage characterized by persevering through Christ’s sufferings. Verse 6 says, “As they pass through the valley of weeping, they make it a place of springs, the autumn rains cover it with pools.” Some of you go through the valley of weeping, you lose a loved one, you go through physical trials unmentionable, struggling with sin, struggling with temptation, struggling in relationships, just struggling in life. As you go through this valley of weeping, you can make it a place of springs and pools by the grace of God. When Christiana, in the second half of Pilgrim’s Progress was making her way through the Valley of Humiliation, Great-Heart, her guide, spoke this way about the Valley of Humiliation, “The Valley of Humiliation is of itself as fruitful a place as any the crow flies over. It is the best and most useful piece of ground in all those parts. It is a fat ground, and as you can see, consisteth much meadows; and if a man was to come here in the summer-time as we do now, if he knew not anything before thereof, and if he also delighted himself on the side of his eyes, he might see that it would be delightful to him. Behold how green this Valley of Humiliation is, how beautiful with lilies. I have known many labouring men that have got good estates in this Valley of Humiliation; for God resisteth the proud, but gives more and more grace to the humble.” This Valley of Humiliation is a place where you’re at your best, because when you’re weak, that’s when you’re strong. This is a pilgrimage characterized by constantly growing in Christ’s holiness. Verse 10, “I would rather be a door keeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. 

Salvation is bigger than walking the isle and getting saved. It’s a war in which you’re putting sin to death every day, or you’ll be wicked too. It’s just the way it is.  Isaiah 35:8 talks about the highway, “A highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it. It will be for those who walk in that way. Wicked fools will not go on it.” The way of pilgrimage is a way of holiness, of personally putting sin to death. 

Sixth, a pilgrimage’s characterized by being blessed daily through Christ’s provision. For the Lord God is a sun and a shield, the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless.” You know the genius of Pilgrim’s Progress is the rhythm of trial, refreshment, trial, refreshment, trial, refreshment. It’s just the way it’s written. You go from Hill Difficulty, to Interpreter’s House, and then down to the Valley of the Shadow of Death and Valley Humiliation, and then you’re  at the Gentle Harbor, or you are at the Place of Refreshment.  It’s just the way it is. If it were all the one, you’d get discouraged, if it were all the other, you’d get fat, and lazy, and comfortable. There’s a rhythm to the Christian life, and so also it is for us.

Then finally, seventh, this is a pilgrimage in which we don’t have to, and don’t get to, in fact, can’t make it alone. Look around you. Brothers and sisters in Christ here making the same journey with you, just like the Jews of old, they didn’t travel alone, they looked around and it was in community. Americans need to hear this more than any other group on the face of the earth. We think like individuals, but you’re not traveling alone, you’re with brothers and sisters who are making the journey with you. Lean on them, encourage them, pray for them, use your spiritual gifts in their lives, strengthen them as they go from strength on strength, just as you do.