“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.” (Psalm 84:5)
Have you ever thought, “I really wish I was in the car driving to church right now”?
Maybe that thought sounds strange to you, but it points to an important question: Do you ever feel a deep yearning in your heart to be worshiping God in his house?
Such was the longing of the author of Psalm 84. This psalm is about the longing, the joy, and the blessing experienced by Jewish pilgrims as they traveled the highways to Zion (Jerusalem) to worship at God’s temple. The psalmist sings that his soul longs for the temple courts of the Lord (84:2). He declares that the happiest people in the world are those who find strength in God and rejoice to be traveling to worship their God (84:5). He believes that a day in God’s courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. Thus, he would rather be a doorkeeper in the temple than dwell in the tents of wickedness (84:10).
Psalm 84 continues to capture the longing of God’s people today for nearness to their God. In Christ, we are pilgrims in this world on the highway to the New Jerusalem where we will spend eternity worshiping our God. We are the happiest people in the world because God is our strength and our hearts can rejoice in our pilgrimage.
At the same time, the longing of this psalmist is relevant for our present experience of worshiping God. We no longer walk to a temple to make sacrifices and bring offerings to God. But we do get to travel each week to the gathering of God’s people, the church. As the New Testament makes clear, God’s people are now his temple (1 Cor 3:16; Eph 2:21).
Therefore, every week when we gather together as a local church to worship our God, we are experiencing something even better than the pilgrims on the highways to Zion. It is true that worshiping God isn’t necessarily about a place anymore, but it does include a people gathered in a place.
So back to the original question: is there a yearning in your heart to be worshiping God with his people each week? When you drive to church is your heart in it? Is it a duty or a delight to be on the highways to church?
For God’s people today, each Lord’s Day spent in worship with the people of God is better than a thousand spent elsewhere. Each Sunday, we gather to confess to God, “Our strength is in you alone!” We gather to praise him and find our strength, joy and blessing in him. He is our sun and our shield. What better way to spend a Sunday than praising this God with his people?
The trip to church, even on the hard days, is a rich delight for the people of God. We are pilgrims journeying toward the New Jerusalem, and each gathering of Christ’s people is a small foretaste of the joy in store for us.
