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Chartridge Mission Church
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The Antidote For Weariness
#Psalm #84 #Antidote #Weariness #Hope
#SASRA #Charity #Faith #DavidMalam #RegionalManager #Bible #Teaching #Christian #Christianity #Jesus #ChartridgeMissionChurch #Chesham

David Malam expounds Psalm 84, which he sees as an antidote to weariness. David looks at the psalm's promises for pilgrims on their way to their final destination: the Celestial City.

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Chartridge Mission Church, a beacon of faith, was founded in 1844 and remains in the village of Chartridge, just outside Chesham, in the picturesque Chiltern Hills of Buckinghamshire, England, UK.

We are a warm and welcoming fellowship and would be delighted to have you visit us in person. Join us for our Sunday service at 6 pm, followed by refreshments.

Our Church is fully accessible, with wheelchair ramps and an accessible toilet, ensuring everyone can participate in our services.

Chartridge Mission Church, Chapel Lane, Chartridge, Chesham, Buckinghamshire, HP5 2TH

The village Church with an international audience.

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Please make cheques payable to Chartridge Mission Church and send them to the address above, for the attention of Pastor Barry Kempson.

Recorded on Sunday, 1st November 2026.

Join us for our Sunday service at 6 pm.

www.Chartridge.UK

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Transcript
00:00Immortal, invisible, God of the wise,
00:07In light, in accessor, Lord, hear from our eyes.
00:15Most blessed, most glorious, the ancient of days,
00:22Almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise.
00:33I'm going to read Psalm 84 to the Chief Musician on an instrument of Gath,
00:40a psalm of the sons of Korah.
00:44How lovely is your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts!
00:50My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord.
00:54My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
00:59Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself,
01:04where she may lay her young.
01:06Even your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God,
01:11blessed are those who dwell in your house.
01:14They will still be praising you.
01:17Seema.
01:19Blessed is the man whose strength is in you,
01:22whose heart is set on pilgrimage.
01:25As they pass through the valley of Baccah, they make it a spring.
01:29The rain also covers it with pools.
01:32They go from strength to strength.
01:34Each one appears before God in Zion.
01:38O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer.
01:43Give ear, O God of Jacob.
01:45Seema.
01:46O God, behold our shield, and look upon the face of your anointed.
01:52For a day in your courts is better than a thousand.
01:56I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
02:02For the Lord God is a sun and shield.
02:06For the Lord God is a sun and shield.
02:06The Lord will give grace and glory.
02:10No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
02:15O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in you.
02:25I was speaking to a colleague about how they went about preparing sermons and Bible messages.
02:34And they explained that what they did was that they, after some study and prayer,
02:40and they'd chosen a passage, they would seek to paraphrase that passage in a single paragraph.
02:50And at that point, just to check they were on the right lines, they would just read one or two
02:57favoured commentaries,
02:58just to make sure that they'd understood.
03:02And then they would take one final step.
03:05They would seek to take that summary paragraph and compress it into one single summary sentence.
03:17And that way, they get to the very heart of the message.
03:24Not so easy to do.
03:26How would you summarise Psalm 84 in a single sentence?
03:37How would you do it?
03:38And if you're thinking where to start, you might be relieved to know,
03:42actually Psalm 84 includes its own summary sentence for us.
03:50You'll find that in verse 12, where it says,
03:55O Lord of hosts, or Lord Almighty, O Lord of hosts,
04:01blessed is the man who trusts in you.
04:06Now, be remiss of me, as I'm here on Sazerah's benefit,
04:09not to mention that O Lord of hosts, that title, sometimes translated O Lord Almighty here,
04:16is a military term.
04:18It is the Lord of the armies of heaven.
04:22O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in you.
04:27So here is this summary sentence for this psalm.
04:30For all its challenges and difficulties,
04:33the righteous life is a blessed and happy life.
04:38The one who walks in God's ways is the truly happy one,
04:43compared to a life lived without God,
04:47notwithstanding problems on the way.
04:52The life of the man or the woman who trusts in God
04:55is to be preferred to a life lived without any thought for God at all.
05:02And I think verse 10, in particular, emphasises the heart of the psalmist.
05:09Famous verse,
05:10For a day in your courts is better than a thousand.
05:15I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
05:20than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
05:25The psalmist would rather be standing at the very edge,
05:29the threshold of God's presence,
05:31than to be comfortably living inside the tents of the godless.
05:37And I wonder, as you came to church this evening,
05:41whether you felt in your very heart and the very depths of your soul,
05:47yes, the Christian life is the truly blessed life.
05:52Or have you this last week been somewhat weighed down
05:56with worries and anxieties and troubles?
06:00Maybe even asking yourself,
06:03is this Christian life that I have embarked upon really worth it?
06:11Now, my children used to love to watch a TV programme
06:15called Australia's Deadliest Attacks.
06:20I don't know if anyone's seen it,
06:22but it's about dangerous animals in Australia,
06:25of which there are a multitude.
06:29Poisonous snakes, poisonous spiders,
06:33even poisonous jellyfish amongst other creatures.
06:37And if you get bitten or stung,
06:40without the speedy administration of an antivenom,
06:44you have very little chance of survival.
06:49Well, Psalm 84 is an antivenom for when we're a little discouraged in our Christian walk,
06:58when we feel weary and we're prone to give up.
07:02So this evening, I just want to look at two.
07:04There are others we could look at,
07:05but just two of the pictures this Psalm gives us to encourage us
07:11when the way is hard,
07:13when we're really doubting that this summary sentence,
07:17O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in you,
07:20when we're doubting,
07:22is that really the case in my life?
07:27So here are the two pictures.
07:29The first one is the sparrow and the swallow.
07:33The second picture is the Valley of Bacca,
07:39journeying through the Valley of Bacca.
07:42And then we'll conclude our time with one final thought.
07:47So first of all, as the psalmist is journeying perhaps back to Jerusalem,
07:54his thoughts turn to the sparrow and the swallow.
08:00We find that in verse three.
08:25The psalmist is envious of these two tiny birds.
08:35They're free to fly within the courts of the temple.
08:39They nest undisturbed high in the sacred buildings.
08:43He's envious of them as he travels back.
08:47And perhaps there are two reasons for his envy of them.
08:51And first, obviously, they can go where the psalmist can't go.
08:58He is far from home.
09:01He's far from Jerusalem.
09:04But they can fly freely into the very courts of the temple.
09:08They can draw near to the holy of holies.
09:12They fly freely where only the priests could go.
09:15They fly within sight of the altar where the unending flame burns.
09:22So he begins his psalm, how lovely is your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts.
09:32Or how lovely are your dwellings.
09:36It's plural.
09:37How lovely are your dwellings.
09:39His longing is to be where the Lord is.
09:44In verse 2, he says,
09:46My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord.
09:50My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
09:56The crying out, that's translated only one other time in the Bible.
10:02That word, it's only found one other time.
10:04And it refers to a ravenous lion crying out for food.
10:10So it's very intense.
10:11It's very real.
10:14He's longing to be near God's presence.
10:20But these birds, these tiny birds, they fly freely in the temple courts.
10:28He's envious of their freedom.
10:30He's also envious of their safety.
10:33They feel safe.
10:35So safe, they make a nest for themselves.
10:38And they're young.
10:40They're unafraid.
10:42They build their nests unobstructed, unalarmed, near the very altar of God.
10:50Do you and I feel the same freedom and safety of the sparrow and the swallow this evening?
10:59Do you feel free and safe when you come to God?
11:07Of course, we worship a God who is holy.
11:13Remember, he looks on the one who is of a humble and contrite spirit.
11:18Who trembles at his word.
11:21There's nothing superficial about this freedom and safety.
11:26I love the interaction between Mr. Beaver and one of the children in Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
11:32Speaking of the great King Aslan, the type of Christ.
11:37And he says, is he safe?
11:40Is Aslan safe?
11:42And of course, Mr. Beaver says, who said anything about safe?
11:47Of course he isn't safe.
11:50But he's good.
11:52But he's good.
11:54But do you and I feel safe and free in God's presence?
12:02We often don't act like the swallow and the sparrow.
12:06We hover at a distance.
12:08Our failings, our wanderings, mean we don't come as freely into God's presence as these do.
12:17They fly freely around the very altar of God, not doubting this is a place of safety for them and
12:25their young.
12:26We so often hold back.
12:29We so often forget that God loves to hear his children pray.
12:37Our Heavenly Father loves us to commune with him.
12:45He loves to commune with us.
12:48He loves his children to come into his presence.
12:54And of course, for the Christian, this safety is found in what God has done for us.
13:04We rejoice that Jesus has come into the world to save sinners.
13:09We marvel at the cross.
13:12We marvel that he was punished in our place.
13:15He took the punishment that I, my sins, deserve.
13:19But there is something else that we forget so often.
13:23My sins were placed on Jesus, but his righteousness, his holiness, his perfect life is placed to my account.
13:37So when our Heavenly Father looks upon his children, he doesn't see our failings and our wanderings.
13:46He sees the beautiful righteousness, the glorious life of his Son.
13:55He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the
14:03righteousness of God.
14:05So we can come as safely and freely into our Heavenly Father's presence as the swallow and the sparrow.
14:16So if the first antidote for weariness is the sparrow and swallow,
14:21then the second antidote is the pilgrim's journey through the valley of Baca.
14:28You'll find that in verse 5 onwards.
14:31Blessed is the man whose strength is in you, whose heart is set on pilgrimage.
14:39As they pass through the valley of Baca, they make it a spring.
14:44The rain also covers it with pools.
14:47They go from strength to strength.
14:49Each one appears before God in Zion.
14:55The valley of Baca, it's an interesting place.
14:59It's not known exactly where it is.
15:03We know it's a dry and thirsty land where there's little or no water.
15:07Some translations translate it as a place of weeping because the word in Hebrew sounds similar to the Hebrew for
15:16weeping.
15:16But the psalmist is trudging through the valley.
15:19He's on his pilgrimage journey.
15:22He's heading for Zion.
15:24It's difficult.
15:26It's challenging.
15:27But his desire to seek God's face is undiminished.
15:31He's thinking about his destination.
15:34And even in the desert land, he finds blessing.
15:40And you'll be aware that the picture of the Christian life as a pilgrimage or as a journey is, of
15:48course, very common in the Bible and in Christian songs and hymns.
15:52And if you're of a certain generation, some of you are, if you're of a certain generation, you'll recall school
15:58assemblies where you were singing John Bunyan's hymn.
16:02He will make good his right to be a pilgrim.
16:06In Pilgrim's Progress, Valiant for the Truth, greets Mr. Great Heart with a great motto, really, for the Christian, which
16:16is,
16:17I am a pilgrim and I'm going to the celestial city.
16:23That's who I am.
16:24I'm a pilgrim and I'm going to the celestial city.
16:28And you'll be aware that the Bible and the New Testament describes the Christian as a stranger, as an exile,
16:36a foreigner, an outsider, someone who's staying temporarily.
16:40It's all language that reminds us that for the Christian, this earth is not the Christian's home.
16:47The Christian is just journeying through the Valley of Baca.
16:53Just want to touch on just two very simple aspects of this journey.
16:57Did you notice that the righteous make it a spring?
17:02The righteous bring a blessing.
17:06They're blessed, but they bring a blessing.
17:09As they travel through, God prepares good works for his children to do, to bless even desert places.
17:19We're reminded, aren't we, that we are his workmanship,
17:23created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared for us to do.
17:29You may not feel it, but you are a blessing as we travel through the Valley of Baca.
17:36And the second thought is simply that each one appears before God in Zion.
17:45The journey of faith has a beginning.
17:48It has an end.
17:50Christian arrives safely in the celestial city.
17:55The difficulties of the Valley of Baca didn't overwhelm the psalmist.
18:01In fact, he's strengthened with the thought of the final destination.
18:07They go from strength to strength.
18:11They arrive safely in Zion.
18:16Now, there is somebody in my fellowship, and when you have one of those situations,
18:22those sad situations when someone is dying, they always pray like this.
18:29Thinking of that particular person.
18:32When they tread, the verge of Jordan, bid their anxious fears subside.
18:44May the death of deaths and hell's destruction land them safe on Canaan's side.
18:58The Christian life has a beginning, but it has an end.
19:03The pilgrim arrives safely on Canaan's side.
19:08And what wonderful promises are given to the pilgrim on the way.
19:13The promise in verse 11 is one of those great Bible promises.
19:20The Lord God is a sun and shield.
19:23The Lord will give grace and glory.
19:26No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
19:35No wonder the psalmist says,
19:38O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in you.
19:44Two pictures for the weary.
19:49Just one closing final thought.
19:54As Christopher Ashe, who's written a commentary on the psalms, reminds us,
19:59Who is the chief singer of this psalm?
20:04Who can sing this psalm like no other?
20:08The Lord Jesus himself is the chief singer of this psalm.
20:13We also find him in verse 9, where the psalmist says,
20:19O God, behold our shield and look upon the face of your anointed or Messiah.
20:28He's there in the psalm.
20:32Jesus himself came into the valley of Baca, the place of weeping.
20:40He entered this world, his glory veiled.
20:45In the dark streets of Bethlehem, there did shine the everlasting light.
20:52In him was light, and the light was the light of men.
20:57He came to this dark world.
20:59And when all was sin and shame, a second Adam to the fight, and to the rescue came.
21:08God was contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man.
21:15He travelled this pilgrim path.
21:18He blessed the valley of Baca with his presence.
21:23He blessed the valley of Baca with his birth.
21:26He blessed the valley of Baca with his life.
21:30What pools of water sprang up by his presence here.
21:36Not just the blind receiving their sight, the lepers cleansed, the lame walked.
21:42Not just the deaf hearing, even the dead raised.
21:46But the poor had the gospel preached to them.
21:51An individual, men and women, multitudes and children,
21:57were blessed by his words and his touch and his presence and his deeds.
22:05The simple were made wise.
22:07The sinful made clean.
22:10Even the hardest heart transformed.
22:14And Jesus, of course, entered the darkest valley.
22:19He entered that place where he suffered more than we can comprehend.
22:26When the sinless one became sin.
22:29When he was punished in our place.
22:33When his heavenly father laid on him, though he had never sinned,
22:39the iniquity of us all.
22:41When he incomprehensibly cried out,
22:45My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
22:53And finally, Jesus finished his work.
22:59For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame,
23:06and sat down at the right hand of God the Father.
23:12The grave could not hold him.
23:17The stone was rolled away.
23:21The angel testified,
23:24Why are you seeking the living among the dead?
23:28He is not here.
23:32Heaven's gates were flung wide,
23:35And the king of glory entered in.
23:41Truly, the head that once was crowned with thorns
23:45Is crowned with glory now.
23:49A royal diadem adorns the mighty victor's brow.
23:58He's gone before through the valley of Baccah.
24:03And this one, this same one,
24:06Will walk with you if you trust him
24:09Through this week and the coming weeks
24:13And bring you safely one day
24:16Into his very presence.
24:21Amen.
24:22The Lord's womb, invisible, God only wise
24:30In light, inaccessible, give from our eyes
24:37Most blessed and most glorious, ye ancient of days
24:44Almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise
24:53Unresting, unwasting, and silent as light
25:00No mourning, no wasting, thou rule that's denied
25:07Thy justice like mountains are soaring upon
25:14By God, by ground which are soaring upon
25:19For goodness and love
25:22Through all life thou givest
25:27To earth, great and soul
25:30In all life thou livest
25:34The true life of all
25:37He blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree, and wither and perish, God, Lord, change in Thee.
25:53Great Father of glory, pure Father of light, Thy angels adore Thee, all veiling their sight.
26:09O Lord, we would render, O help us to see, Tis only the splendor of light, I let Thee.
26:25Immortal, invisible, God, only wise, In light, inaccessible, here from our eyes.
26:41Most blessed and most glorious, The ancient of days, Almighty, victorious, Thy great name we praise.

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