“Arching for God’s Reign” (Psalm 84)

 

On June 5th Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched into space. They were scheduled to be in space for 8 days and then return to earth. But during the launch the ship had a few malfunctions. We are told that some thrusters were not working properly, and that the spacecraft was leaking helium. Thankfully, the space craft was able to make it the International Space Station. Butch and Suni are currently safe, aboard the ISS. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be 8 days in space is now going to be 8 months in space. NASA decided not to send Butch and Suni home on the compromised space craft. Instead, they will wait for another space craft that is scheduled for February of 2025. Can you imagine what that must be like for Butch and Suni? As much as they love space, as much as they have spent their whole lives training for space, 8 days is much different than 240 days. When they said goodbye to their families, they thought they’d be back for the 4th of July. They thought they’d watch the Olympics together. But now, they won’t be back until the sometime around the Super Bowl. I can’t imagine the toll this will take on them. Not just mentally or emotionally, but even physically. Their bodies were not made to live in space indefinitely. Their very bodies will long to return to earth. Their muscles will atrophy, and their bones will weaken as the calendar flips month after month. As much as they are passionate for space, their bodies will be desperate for earth because space is not their home. 

Now I don’t know you all too much, but I’m guessing no one here has been stuck in space before… but maybe you know of that ever-present home-sick feeling? If you’ve ever been deployed for military service or if you’ve ever been in a long-distance relationship, then you too know something of this perpetual ache. You know how that longing to be where you most want to be, with those you most love, seeps into everything that you do. And as followers of Jesus, we know this ache as well, don’t we? We long for Jesus to make this world home again. Christians have prayed for that since Jesus taught us to pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. We long for King Jesus to put an end to sin, suffering, and evil and to establish his kingdom on earth. We long for the New Heavens and New Earth where righteousness dwells. We long to experience the joy of being in the King’s presence while delighting in His good and gracious rule. As followers of Jesus, we know this ache too. We experience a longing, an ache, a homesickness for what has been lost and what one day will be. And Psalm 84, our passage for this morning, is meant to stoke the fires of our longing for the good and gracious rule of God to be on earth as it is in heaven. It’s meant to fuel our longing for the reign of God on earth. As he says in verse 1, “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord of Armies.” And so that is what we are going to try and get a sense of, first by naming the problem in verses 1-4, second by making the journey verses 5-8, and third by getting a taste of what it will be like when our deepest longings are fulfilled in verses 9-12.

First, let’s try to name the problem. There’s a song that came out about 40 years ago titled “Better is One Day” which set Psalm 84 to song. It was super popular, if you’ve been around the church at all you probably know it. It was part of this much larger movement in modern Christian music that emphasized being in the presence of God. The idea being that God’s presence is something someone could experience anytime anyplace. This, of course, isn’t completely misguided; God is everywhere present. The problem is, however, that our Psalm is saying the exact opposite. The Psalmist is precisely not where he wants to be. He wants more than a felt sense of God’s presence. He wants more than a fleeting feeling. He wants to live in the Temple. He wants to dwell there. He wants the Temple to be his home He desperately wants to take up residence in the brick-and-mortar temple of the living God. Listen to what he says in verse 4, “Happy are those who reside in your house.” Why would someone feel this way about the Temple? Why would someone want to make the Temple their home?

It wasn’t because the Temple was a beautiful structure, even though it probably was. But that is not what he means by “lovely.” He felt this way because it was the “dwelling place of the Lord of Armies.” That phrase “The Lord of Armies” is used four times in this Psalm. It is a military term. It communicates power and authority and rule. It was the same designation that David used when he was taunting Goliath. “You come against me with a sword, spear and javelin,” said David, “but I come against you in the name of the Lord of Armies, the God of the ranks of Israel.” The Psalmist longs make the Temple his home, not just because it feels good to be there, but because that is the place on earth where the true King’s reign is delighted in. “How lovely is your dwelling place!” And because God reigns is delighted in there, there was no place for evil and all was as God designed things to be. He wants to live there because that’s what home is supposed to be like.

Home is such a poignant concept for us, isn’t it? It’s a word that is meant to convey warmth, and laughter, and love. A place that just feels right. A place of delight. A place where the dog comes and licks you to pieces every time you open the door. A place where the smell of fresh brewed coffee wakes you up in the morning. A place where your posture softens, your shoulders relax, and you breathe easy. Where everything is in its place and all your favorite people are there. But it is not always like that. Home can also be elusive. Loved one’s die, kids move out, there can be an invisible wall between spouses gets thicker and thicker. Home can often feel more like some unattainable ideal rather than reality. Tim Keller writes about this in his book, The Prodigal God. He says, “The memory of home seems to be powerfully evoked by certain sights, sounds, and even smells. But they can only arouse a desire they can’t fulfill.” Why? Why do we all feel this longing, this ache? 

Why is this longing for home such a common experience? So common that, the Psalmist says even the smallest of birds experience it. In verse 3 we read, “Even a sparrow finds a home, and a swallow, a nest for herself where she places her young – near your altars, Lord of Armies.” Even the smallest of birds long for the home where God’s reign is delighted in. The Temple is a place for the smallest of birds to find refuge. And they find refuge there because this world, the created order, is no longer home. Its not the home its supposed to be. Home feels just out of reach, because it is. Our world holds out so much hope and potential, doesn’t it? You think of the laughter of a newborn or the young married couples first home. These things fill us with warmth and delight, and then a hurricane comes and wipes them away. No sooner do we realize our dreams and get a taste of the sweetness of life than something terrible happens and our dream turns into a nightmare. And our Psalm is saying it is this way because God’s reign is not delighted in. What’s wrong with our world is not the economy, not the president, not education, it’s that God is not delighted in as King. And because of that, this world no longer feels like home. 

Except for in the Temple. Except for in that place. In that place where God’s reign is delighted in. In that place, the world feels like home again. And it is “lovely.” In that place, on the top of a hill in Jerusalem, human beings finally feel at peace, at rest, at ease. They breathe easy, they laugh easy, they sing with joy because they are back under the true King’s roof. The Temple of the Lord of Armies is the true home you were made to dwell in. The temple of the living God is what you most deeply long for. That is why the Psalmist is jealous of a sparrow who built a nest in the Temple. That is why he is jealous of the priests that get to live their year-round. And you should be jealous too. We were not made to know the world as it currently is. You should ache for this world to be the home it was always meant to be. And it is appropriate for you to ache. There is not something wrong with you if it feels like this world is disjointed. This world is disjointed. If you’ve ever had that sense that life feels just out of reach, like you are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole – you are not crazy. The world as we know it is not the home we were made for. All of creation knows it, we ourselves know it, and so we ache.

And naming this is an important part of being a follower of Jesus. Part of our journey towards home is learning how to navigate the tension of being both hopeful and honest. On the one hand we are people of tremendous hope. In Jesus we know the true King! And our King has promised that He will establish his kingdom on earth. One day sin and death will be no more! We are a people of hope. But on the other hand, there is this ongoing ache that we all experience. We aren’t just maladjusted. It’s not that we haven’t tried hard enough. It isn’t that we need a new diet or exercise program. It’s not that a new president is going to solve everything. The problem is this world is homesick. The problem is we need the world’s King to make this place home again. The problem is the King’s reign needs to be delighted in again. And so we will continue to ache. We ache in hope, but we still ache. How do we do that? How do we live with both an ongoing ache and a glorious longing for what will be without becoming depressed or grumpy or resentful? The answer we find in verses 5-8 is that we are to set our hearts on God. We are to make to the journey back to Him.

If I were to ask you based on the first section of the Psalm, “who is living the good life? Who is the most happy person?” You would probably say that “The person living the good life is the one who is dwelling in God’s house.” And you would be right. That is exactly what verse four says, “Happy are those who reside, or dwell, in your house.” Happy are those for whom the Temple is their home. Happy, here, is sometimes translated as blessed or as the good life. What is interesting though is that in very next verse the Psalmist says the good life is also for those traveling to God’s house. Happy are those who are on their way. Which is another way to say, blessed are those who ache and who allow that ache to move them toward their true home. The good life is also available to those who are not yet where they want to be! It’s available to you and to me. In verse 5, “Happy, or the good life, is also for the people whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.” How is that the case? I mean, we are in a time when evil can feel overwhelming. There is so much uncertainty in the air these days. The prevailing mood for so many is not one of optimism, but pessimism. We think of the problems we are facing and we ask, “how could people living in a time like ours be called blessed?” So, how is it possible for us to be “happy” when we are not yet where we want to be. How can the good life be available to us not only in some far off distant future but even now in the journey? How can being followers of King Jesus make a difference in our lives here and now in the day and age in which we live?

Well, on some level, I think we already have a sense of the answer to that. Why do we love movies like Rocky and shows like The Bear? Why does The Lord of the Rings stir our souls, like little else can? Why is that fictional characters can make our hearts soar? I mean we love when Rocky climbs the steps so much, that they actually made a statue of it. Who here has not read about or watched the friendship between Sam and Frodo and felt jealous? Why is that? Is it just escapism? No. These stories get at what we are talking about. These stories give us glimpses and glimmers of what the Psalmist is saying — the good life is also for those who are journeying. We love to see people persevere and beat the odds. We love to see good triumph over evil. We love it when people push through obstacles and keep striving towards a goal. Every moment may not be pleasurable or easy but a life directed towards God’s lovely dwelling place is called good!

These stories show us what can happen when people have their hearts fixed on some greater goal. Verse 5 says, “Happy are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.” What was Rocky aiming at? Not being a bum. What do Sam and Frodo want? To destroy the ring, yes but even more than that they want save the Shire. They want to go home. They want to sit around the table with family and friends with a pipe in one hand and a pint in the other. Where do they get the strength to travel all the way into the depths of Mordor? Their strength comes from their love for home. Their goal is where their strength comes from. The Shire is what animated and fueled their entire journey. And if that is possible for fictional characters, how much more is that possible for us who have our hearts set on the Living God. Our goal is nothing less than the dwelling place of the Lord of Armies! We are journeying towards our true home. Yes there are sadnesses and losses that we endure, life in our homesick world still very hard – but there is also a strength and even a joy available to us because our hearts are set on God. 

The idea of our hearts being set on God, from verse 5, speaks to the depths of what a human being is. The heart in the Old Testament is the core of human existence. It is the operating center. Everything that you do and everything that you are flows from your heart. And what we see in verse 5 is that God is writing the journey to Himself on the travelers’ hearts. He is the one giving them the desire and the ability to make the journey. “Happy are the people whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.” The travelers’ strength is in God, which means it comes from God, and their hearts are set on pilgrimage which means that their desire is being directed back towards God. God is both the goal and the giver. He is both the destination and the source of strength for the journey. To have one’s heart set on God means that God is at work deep within you, orienting you back to Himself. And that is what is true of every single person who is united to Jesus in faith.

That’s what King Jesus is doing in us in our aching. As we return to Him over and over again. As we bring him our tears. As we bring him our disappointments. As we bring him our fears. As we bring all of our experiences of life in this homesick world we are being strengthened on the journey. We are like our favorite characters, striving towards the goal. We are living the good life. It is not those who cease to ache that truly happy and truly blessed. It is not those who have the “perfect family” or who have all the newest gadgets or who can afford the most exotic vacations that are living the good life. The good life is for those who direct their ache for home back towards God. It is those who long for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, that are truly blessed. It is those who follow King Jesus even when life is hard, that are truly happy. Didn’t Jesus himself say, “Blessed are those who mourn.” And “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Blessed now in the mourning, in the hungering, in the aching and blessed in the future when we are comforted and when the kingdom becomes our forever home. When all we know is the loveliness of righteousness.

So if we ache because this world is no longer the home that it was meant to be, and if the answer is to journey towards God, then how are we empowered to do this? In verses 9-12 we will see that the power to do this comes from getting a taste of what it will be like when our deepest longings are fulfilled.

When I sat down to interview for a barista position at a coffee shop in Chicago in 2015, the server brought out three shots of espresso. One for the owner, one for the manager, and one for me. And I looked down at that tiny little cup and thought “this is where I lose the job.” I had never drank an espresso before and I was terrified that I was going to spit it out all over the table. I watched Pasquale and Thomas to see how they drank it, then I knocked it back. And to my surprise, it was one of the most delicious things I had ever tasted. Up until that point, I typically just went to Starbucks and ordered some oversized sweet drink. But from that point onward my preferences and even my taste buds began to shift away from quantity, a venti caramel whatever, and towards quality.  

And the Psalmist wants to help us see how journeying towards God involves a similar shift. As lovely as our home will be, our journey is still hard. We need the encouragement that comes from getting a taste of what it will be like to be home with God again. He wants to show us how the reward for completing this journey will be infinitely better than life as we currently know it. And he does this through two comparisons. In verse 10 he says, “Better a day in your courts than a thousand anywhere else. I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God than live in the tents of wicked people.” These two comparisons are extremely evocative and they run counter to conventional thinking. We will look at each of them briefly. 

First, “Better a day in your courts than a thousand anywhere else.” Which is to say that being in the vicinity of the Temple for one day is better than having a three year all-expense paid trip to Hawaii. Which is kind of hard to believe. If you were to walk up and down Michigan Avenue polling people, which do you think would be the most common answer? 3 years in Hawaii or 1 day at the Temple. If you were to poll the person sitting to your left or right, which do you think would be the most common answer? I think, the predominant answer would probably be Hawaii or wherever your favorite vacation spot is. It is hard for us to even conceive of a place that could be a 1000x’s better than the best places this world has to offer. But the Psalmists says the Temple is such a place.

And the second contrast is, “I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God than live in the tents of wicked people.” Standing at the threshold is referring to the job of being a doorkeeper. The Psalmist is saying I’d rather have a low-status job near the Temple, than to be in a position of comfort among the wicked. And that again runs counter to so much of how our world operates. Who would actually pick being a forgettable person with a menial job over being rich and famous and beloved by the masses? I mean how many people are willing to do all sorts of risky or sinful behavior to make some extra money? Or to have a taste of fame? What would it take to actually draw someone away from things that are as damaging as that? It would take something even more lovely, even more worthwhile, even better than the best things this world has to offer. And to have something better than this world has to offer, means we have to have God Himself.

It is God that makes the difference. It is that the Psalmist would be God’s doorkeeper that makes it the better option. It is one day with God that is better than a thousand anywhere else. Back in verse 2, God is called “the living God” and in verse 11, God is likened to the sun. Which is to say that He is the very source of life. He has life in and of himself. He has life at a level that we know this much of. God has life at such a different level that it is actually inaccurate to say, “he has life.” He doesn’t have life, He is life. Which blows up our philosophical and linguistic categories! But that is kind of abstract, so let’s get back to the metaphor. A day in the Temple is better than a 1,000 in Hawaii because the creator of such a place must be even greater than that place. 

Just consider how these comparisons work. What God makes is so good, that we have a hard time imagining anything better. We have to use the best of the things that God has made in order to even begin to grasp how much better God is! If one of the best places we can think, Hawaii, makes us salivate with delight, then how much more will the source of life itself satisfy our deepest longings? Even in a homesick world God still gives so much beauty, goodness, and delight. Why are the movements of a hummingbird so mesmerizing? Why is pizza so delicious? Why is laughter so infectious? Why do we have such a capacity for wonder? It is because there is a benevolent God who delights to give us good things. This is what the Psalmist says in verse 11, “The Lord grants favor and honor; he does not withhold the good from those who live with integrity.” Do you realize that all the good things in your life come to you from God? He is not only the source of life, but he is also the giver of all good things. From the food on our tables to our capacity to wonder, all that we have comes from God. And if you love all those things, how much more will you love being home with him again?

 

And God’s benevolence does not stop there. He has also given us His beloved son. Jesus is the fullest expression of what it means that God will withhold no good thing. What greater good could there be than the eternal Son of God? The one who came not be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. The one who chose a menial existence for the life of the world. The only one who lived his life with the utmost integrity. The one who became a nobody from nowheresville Nazareth so that we could dwell in God’s house forever. The greatest in the kingdom of heaven became the least here on earth. Jesus is these comparisons made flesh and blood. Jesus himself said that he is greater than the temple. If you want to know why you should desire to make the journey to God – look at Jesus. If in your aching the journey seems too hard — look at Jesus. If the goodness of living under the King’s reign is hard seems too far off – look to Jesus. Because what the Psalmist could only imagine, we see with far more clarity in Him. Jesus is the fulfilment of the Temple. Jesus is the King we are coming to know and delight it. And Jesus is the one through whom God is making this world a home for us again.