Longing For God

The Beauty of God’s Dwelling Place in Psalm 84

Will please stand for the reading of God's Word in Psalm number 184. I'll be reading all 12 verses and this will be our text for this afternoon. Psalm number 184. 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. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.

Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise, Selah. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the valley of Bacchae, 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. For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.

For the Lord is a sun and shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you. May God bless the reading and now the proclamation of His Word.

Longing for Christ as the Beloved Dwelling Place

Please be seated. You know the great preacher Charles Spurgeon called this psalm the Pearl of Psalms and it truly is a pearl. It's a pearl of great price. It speaks to us of that special beauty of God's house, the joy that it is to worship Him, the joy we should have when we're gathered together and we sing praises and worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

This is a psalm that is true, that pearl of great price, the pearl of psalms. There's also a psalm that teaches us the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in this way because it teaches us to desire Him, to long for our Lord Jesus Christ, to want to be like Him while we're walking in these tents, as Peter calls them, while we're sojourning in this broken, fallen world.

What is it that we seek after? What is it that we long for? What is it that you long for most? Is it not the Lord Jesus Christ? Is it not the reason we come together to worship Him, to come into this lovely dwelling place made holy by the attending Spirit of God Himself?

And as we preach, as we pray, as we commune together, as we build one another up into the body of Christ, as He builds His church by and through us, one way to state our ultimate goal is what we have right here in this psalm that is the pearl of psalms according to Charles Spurgeon.

It teaches us to desire Christ, to long for Christ, to just want more and more of Him as we dwell in His house and call out His praises. It says, how lovely is the dwelling place of God? He says in the first verse, how lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts.

Now, if you look in your ESV, you've got that exclamation point at the end, so it's an exclamative statement. But, you know, I want to reword this for you or restate it for you just a little bit differently, because that first word, what we have is how.

In the Hebrew, it's the word ma. You don't have to remember that. We transliterate it m-a-h. It's just an interrogative. It's like a what or a how. What are you doing tonight? How did it go with you today?

That sort of a thing. Ma is the first word there. And so, I want to read it that way to you as a question. How lovely are your dwelling places, O Lord of hosts? So lovely that He answers it in the second verse.

So lovely that immediately He has to say, my soul longs, yet faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. How lovely is God's dwelling place? Make it a question.

How lovely are they? They are so lovely that in my very soul, in the depth of my being, in that part of me as a human that is able to reach out to and relate to God way down deep in the bowels as the King James would have it.

That's where I long for Christ. That's where I faint, just to be in the courts of the Lord, to be with God's people, worshiping Him, singing for joy to the living God. I believe it was Steve Lawson who wrote a book on preaching through the Psalms.

Well, I know he did, but I think it was him who said, fairly convincingly, that most of the Psalms, whether or not they give a particular occasion, such as when David ran from Absalom or something like that, they all have a point of contact with something that actually happened.

There's a circumstance that led the Psalmist to write what we have here. And so as we go through this, I want us to think about this just a minute because it's a Psalm of the sons of Korah, and the Korahites were keepers of the tabernacle, keepers of the temple.

They were the ones who kept it clean. They're the ones who kept things neat, the ones who kept things orderly, and they were also part of the choir there. That's who it was written by. I want you to keep that in mind a little bit as we go through this.

He says, how lovely is your dwelling place. That word for lovely is the Hebrew, again, yadid. You don't have to remember that, but this word's only used seven times in the Old Testament. Yadid, for lovely.

In our ESV, six of those times it's used, six of those sevens, it's translated as beloved. Beloved. Only in Psalm 84 verse 1 is it translated as lovely. Now God's dwelling place certainly is lovely. We would all agree with that, but the word every other time is beloved.

As in Isaiah 5 .1, where as Pastor Conley pointed out some weeks ago, it's Jesus singing to his church and says, let me sing for my beloved. It's the same word we have here in Psalm 84. Beloved. It speaks of something as precious.

It speaks of something that in the sight of the person who's speaking of it, it's beautiful. It's an undying, it's an unbounded love for someone or something. Excuse me, someone, never something. It's always for someone.

And it fits our Psalm well, and I think beloved is really a better rendering. It might sound a little clumsy in our English thought pattern, our Western thought patterns, but how beloved is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts?

It's a great question that answers immediately. So lovely that as I said, in the depth of my being, I want nothing but to be there with God's people, by God's Spirit, calling out his praises. Just as a quick aside, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which we call the Septuagint, this word for lovely, this word yadid in the Hebrew is translated with agapetos in the Greek, which is the same word that God uses at Jesus' baptism when he said, this is my agapetos, that word, my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.

Same word. Beloved works really well here. How beloved is it to me to be close to Christ as I join with God's people and call out his praises. It's a sort of love that cannot, that just won't be shared with anyone or anything else in the world.

Now we share it with each other in that sense, but I mean to share that worship with anything that is not Christ himself. We don't share with money. Jesus says you cannot serve God in money. You will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

We don't share this love with relationships, not with anything, because anything that we put before this, anything that to us is more beloved, then this presence of Christ, the spoken of here in the psalm, becomes that idol, becomes something other than, becomes something less than what God is.

And this is not our psalmist or Korah Haidt's view here. He wants nothing but to be with God's people and see this lovely, this beloved place where he knows God has worshipped rightly. So it's a relational sort of a thing.

The psalmist longs not for the temple itself, though that was lovely, one of the wonders of the world, and he worked to keep it that way. He longs for the presence of the one who could be found there, which is the Lord God, because in those days that's where God chose for his name to reside.

That's where his presence was to be found. He wants to be close to God, and it's a closeness that's so deep that he wants, he says, my soul longs. His soul, as I said, will relate to God. This is what Pascal meant when he said, there's a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.

That's what he longs for in his soul. You know, man is a walking contradiction when he denies God. Most of the world out there, whether they know it or not, and presumably they don't know it, or they would repent and come to Christ, but they are walking contradictions in this sense, that they're not longing for that for which they were made.

They're not doing that for which God created man, which is to worship him. It's a walking contradiction, because we were made to worship God by faith in Christ Jesus his Son and the working of the indwelling Spirit.

That's what we're made for. That's what we're to long for. That's why we do long for that kind of worship. Anything other than that is to deny our actual purpose, to not long for God, is to deny what we were made for.

You know, my dad, who I loved dearly, he was a terrible guy with tools. He'd go to flea markets, he'd buy the cheapest wrenches and screwdrivers he could find so he wouldn't waste money on them, and you know, I think I've told some of you before, the wrenches were always kind of rounded out so they never grabbed the nut.

They'd get these vice grips, and he'd clamp down on them. You know what vice grips are? Okay, good. They'd just clamp down and ruin the head of the screw or the nut or whatever. He just was terrible with tools.

And back in the day, carburetors were adjusted with two little brass screws, one for richness and one for the fuel. You just adjust them back and forth, tiny little brass screws with this little spring on them to hold them in place once you got them right.

What you're supposed to use on this, just a little bit bigger than a jeweler's screwdriver. My dad didn't have time to find that. He'd get a big regular screwdriver, and they were never flat and sharp anyway.

He'd just rip it in there, and of course it would mess up the carburetor, and you couldn't adjust it anymore, and we had to take the whole thing out, and it was just a mess. And why? Because he's using the tool for something that wasn't its purpose.

It couldn't work because that's not what it was made for, and that's not how those things are supposed to be adjusted. And it's sort of like that when people deny Jesus Christ, as most of the world does.

They deny themselves the only way to God. That's Jesus Christ who said of himself, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. And when they deny that, they deny to live according to their God-intended purpose.

Walking contradictions. And here we are, fulfilling the purpose that God called us for. What does Peter say? He called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light. For what purpose? That we might declare the glories of him who did just that.

Called us out of darkness, called you into light. This is our purpose. And for man to do anything else than to worship God in his life, when the Lord stayed together with God's people, is to deny this very purpose.

And so things don't work. It's like that screwdriver being jammed into that little brass screw. It's supposed to be treated very delicately. It's just not going to have any good result. There's no good outcome that can come from it.

We find our Levite, this Korahite. I believe he's away from his purpose, which is caring for God's house. And this is why he's longing for it. He might have been on some journey. Maybe he became ceremonially unclean.

Or maybe he's tormented by some sin that's on his conscience, and he can't in good conscience perform his duties as a Levite. See, when we have this kind of sin upon our soul, upon our spirit, and do not or will not recognize it, and cannot or will not repent of it, we join this son of Korah.

We join this Levite because we have absented ourselves from worship that is vital. Worship that is deep. Worship that resonates in the soul. Worship that's in truth and in spirit. The psalmist was absent from the place where God met with his people.

And today, we have Christ here with us. Wherever two or three are gathered together in his name, there he is amongst them. Yet some of us are here only in person. We're really as far away as this Korahite was.

For whatever reason, he was away and had to long to be returned. Whatever the cause was, some of us are like him. Though we're sitting here in the pew, Sunday after Sunday, attending all the meetings.

And yet in spirit, far away because of some sin that we won't acknowledge, that we won't confess, that we won't repent, and know God's forgiveness. He longs to be there again. He longs for whatever it is to be resolved, to finish the journey, to make the transaction so we can go back home, to confess the sin, to finally acknowledge the sin before God.

If that's the case, and I'm only speculating here, I'm just fairly sure that he's away physically and wants to be back. I'm not sure what the reason is. Those are all speculations, but he longs for it.

He longs to be there again. And the word for longs, and again, another Hebrew word is kasaf. Kasaf. And that word sounds very like the word for money that's also often translated silver, which is kesef.

The same consonants, just a little bit different vowels. Now I'm not saying that that's exactly how we had in mind a wordplay like that. It just caught my interest that he longs for the temple. He longs to be at the worship again.

He longs to be in that beautiful, beloved place. And that word for longs just happens to sound very like the word for money. And so the idea may be, and I hold this a little bit tentatively, but the idea may be just how valuable and how precious this thing is.

This worship that he longs for, this connection with God's people again. I wonder how much we long for God. I wonder how much we really do in our soul faint a way to be with Christ, to hear his name proclaimed, to hear the goodness of God and what he's done for us in Christ told us over and over again.

Because there's nothing more beautiful than the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's nothing more wonderful than God's people together with one spirit, one accord and one voice calling out his praises. Do we long for that?

Is it precious to you? How long can we be absent from it? How long can we be away from our true purpose? He seems to really envy anything or anyone who can be there where he wants to be. Verse 3, even the sparrow finds a home and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.

I used to think of this as kind of mawkish, but when I looked at this again to preach it here this afternoon, I thought to myself, well, you know, he might be kind of jealous. He might be looking and say, well, I'm worth many birds as the Lord Jesus Christ would tell us in the gospel of Matthew.

Why do you worry, O you of little faith? You're worth more than many of those. He looks at it, here's a bird. It's not worth a fraction what I'm worth, and yet it gets to be there where I want to be. Jesus does lay our worries to rest when he said, look at the birds of the air.

They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? He's looking at those birds saying, I am of more value. Why do they get to be there?

O Lord, I'm longing for this place. Bring me back to it. You're taking care of the sparrow. There she is safe and provided for. Bring me there. Let me come back to that place. You know, sometimes we see others, and I mean people and not birds, having what we want.

We can become bitter about it, especially sometimes in the spiritual sense. We see people who seem to have that closeness with God. The people who, when they raise their hands, they seem like they truly are connecting with God in a way where we can look over and say, why can't I connect like that?

Why do the birds get to be there and not me? Why does this person have that special reverence, a special holiness when they call out the glories of Christ Jesus? Well, before we let that grow into anything like envy or jealousy or wrath or clamor, even if we keep it within, we need to look at verse four and see what the cure is for this.

If you're in that kind of a position where you're not progressing in the Lord Jesus Christ, but you want to, and you're getting jealous of those who do, instead of asking, hey, would you coach me along?

Would you edify me? Would you bring me along? Would you be that mentor? We just keep it within. The answer to that is really in the next verse. It's twofold. First, look to yourself to see what got you into that state in the first place.

Even if whatever happened was not your fault, if you were sinned against, it's your fault if you do not obey what Jesus said and go to your brother, your sister, and resolve things according to Matthew 18.

The second answer is what's in verse four where he says, blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise, Selah. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.

A spiritual malaise can be a spiritual maze, and the longer we stay there, the harder it is to find our way out. It's like an escape room where the clues keep getting harder or changing on us, and scripture tells us with the temptation, God also provides the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.

We're easily tempted to remain isolated in spirit, if not in person. We keep our sins private. We keep them private even with the Lord, if that was even possible, which it isn't, but we think we can. One way out is to follow the example of our son of Korah here, and what is that example?

Pray. Pray for others. Pray for those you might be looking to. Pray for those who have what you want, whether it's that special reverence I was alluding to before, whether it's just that they're able to be there and you're not.

Pray blessings upon those who are enjoying intimacy with Christ, and this is what he does. It almost sounds like beatitudes. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise. He's speaking of the God's people who he yearns to be with.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. When you're in that state, pray for people. Pray particularly for those who you may be looking to with the beginning seed of a spirit of jealousy even.

Pray for them. Call up blessings upon them. As they go through the valley of Bacchus, verse 6, 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. What's he remembering here? When he was with God's people, perhaps on pilgrimage routes, the sanctifying effect that the children of God have wherever they go, that he once had.

He's still blessing his brethren. He knows that they are just what Jesus said, the salt of the earth and the shining light focused upon Christ. The word for pools could be rendered as blessing, and the idea is they're going from strength to strength.

As we go from grace to grace, as the Apostle Paul says, or excuse me, as the evangelist John wrote, the word for pools could be blessing. And the people of God, where they go in this world, as hard and as parched as that land is, they leave behind pools of blessing.

And you leave behind pools of blessing. And the ministries of this church we'll pray for in a little while. Going door-to-door, as Lord God willing, we will in a week or so. Handing out food as we do each Saturday in the name of Christ.

We're in a parched land. We're on a pilgrimage route, if you will. And as we obey Christ, as we do the ministry that he's given us, we do leave behind a blessing. Turning a parched land into pools of water.

Repentance, Prayer, and the Strength to Return to Zion

He longs to be restored there. Going from strength to strength in Zion, in verse 8 he says, O Lord of hosts, hear my prayer. Give ear, O God of Jacob, say la. And what prayer? I would propose that the prayer that he gave was a prayer of repentance.

As verse 9, God willing, I'll be able to support. Hear my prayer, he says. Just moving on quickly to verse 9, behold our shield, O God. Look on the face of your anointed. Verse 9 is understood by some commentators are referring to the Davidic King.

Maybe he's on some procession with the king. He's saying behold the face of your anointed. Maybe David, maybe one of his descendants. It all depends on when the psalm was written, and that we don't know.

Back to Spurgeon, he said, it matters little when the psalm was written or by whom. And he votes for David. But what can we say about that verse? That Jesus is our shield. Jesus is our high priest. We're in procession with him, and we can call out God.

Blessings upon Jesus Christ as he built his church through us, as we worship him together, building this place up. What I want you to notice, and we'll come to a close very quickly here, between verse 8 and 9, says, O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer.

No longer talking about the people of God, he's talking about himself. He says, behold our shield, O God. Look on the face of your anointed. Whether it's David, whether it's the high priest. Did you notice the change in pronoun?

Blessed are they. Blessed are those. Hear my prayer in verse 8. They're going from strength to strength. Verse 7, O God, hear my prayer. And then in verse 9, finally behold our shield. He feels that inclusion once again.

His prayer has been heard. Whatever the prayer was to return him from his journey, to forgive him of the sin, whatever it was, he's turned from they to our. And this is what prayer does, especially when we pray for others.

It reconnects us, or it strengthens the connection we have together, making us all the more that one body that is Jesus Christ. How lovely will it be, a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.

I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.

O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you. You know, there's a biblical principle, Psalm 115 verse 1, that we become like that which we worship. We become that like with which we long for.

In Psalm 115, speaking of idols and those who worship them, become like them, blind, deaf, and dumb. We become like that which we worship. So I ask you as we bring this to a close and head to prayer time, do you have the kind of longing for Christ that's pictured in this psalm?

Do we see the worship of God together, or the church together worshiping God, as something that is not just lovely but beloved? Beloved because God's beloved son is here with us, where two or three are gathered.

Do we long for this in our soul? Can we all say with the psalmist, one thing I have asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire at his temple.

When we want to worship Christ more than anything else, when we can't stand being distant from him and apart from his people, it shows what is truly beloved and precious and valuable to us. And I would suggest that there's nothing more precious and beloved and valuable to yearn after and to long for than Christ Jesus and the worship of him in spirit and truth with God's people.

Amen.