Today’s text is Psalm 84:10, a verse that is well-known in Christian circles through the song whose chorus goes, “Better is one day in Your courts than thousands elsewhere.”
In the ESV (English Standard Version) the verse reads,
“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.”
Once again we are studying the proposition that desire for, satisfaction in, longing for, delighting in God makes much more of Him than mere allegiance to Him does. Mere allegiance does not treasure; devotion treasures. My observation is that a great number of professing disciples of Jesus do not in fact “taste and see that God is good,” and do not pursue Him as though that were a possibility, and as a result experience precious little of Him in their daily lives, and so exhibit little personal holiness and are often stuck in a lot of sin. It is as though He were not even there. The Bible however gives us example after example of people who knew God intimately, like the writer of Psalm 84.
Prior to verse 10 he writes, “My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.” (verse 2) This is a guy who wanted to be as close to his God as possible. By the words utilized you read that he was not indifferent to being there. O that the same could be said of us as we get up Sunday morning and think about going to church to meet with God and His people!
“I don’t really want to go . . . I’m tired so maybe I’ll just sleep in . . . What’s the point, the music’s always the same . . .” are words that would not register with our psalmist. He would look at the owner of such a Sunday sentiment and say, “You don’t know God very well . . . or at least not as you could and should.”
The writer desires to be with his God, and obviously having been with Him on previous occasions, declares, “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.”
Another way to say it is, “Being near You is better than being anywhere else and with anyone else, even if those ‘anywhere/anyone elses’ were my life’s top hundred experiences ten times over.” It is a deep and real closeness with God that compels him to see everything else, every other delight, even a whole pile of them stacked to the clouds, in much dimmer light. He could say, “I love my wife, I love holding her and making love to/with her. I delight to see my children play and snuggle with me. I rejoice at the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, a big sky Nebraska sunset loaded with God’s paint, I so enjoy being with close friends. I take great satisfaction in pointing people to God . . . and yet when I take my best moments, my sweetest experiences, my greatest earthly joys and pile them into a day, and then make a thousand of those days, still, they do not hold my heart, they are not better than one day, just one day with You, my King and my God.”
I think the “one day” reference is also an understatement. It could just as well have read, “One nanosecond in Your courts is better than ten million elsewhere.” I say this based on just how great God is. Merely consider that Jesus “upholds the universe by the word of His power,” (Hebrews 1:3) that He is infinite and eternal and that the heavens declare His glory, in other words tell us a little bit about His excellence, and you see that “just one glimpse of His unveiled glory will be enough to send us into spiritual ecstasy that will last forever.” (R.C Sproul – Tabletalk magazine from several years ago)
The psalmist has experienced God as delightful, satisfying and glorious, and as a result wants more of Him. This is a radical counter to what passes as Christian these days and what we all-too-often settle for in our intercourse with God from day to day.
The second part of the verse, “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness” is a pretty natural or reasonable outflow to the reality expressed in the first part of the verse. It is reasonable that in his desire to be near his holy and perfect God, in his exposure to Him, he becomes transformed for good purposes. Notice the declaration of humility. “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God.” Doorkeepers are not talked about nor made much of, but he doesn’t care, because in this lowly serving position he gets to be near God, and that’s the main thing. Again how this stands in stark contrast to the American Church today in which people will more readily fill positions of prominence than they will positions that go largely unnoticed and are not glamorous. When is the last time you saw a PhD serving coffee or a banker working in the nursery?
Final point; through authentic intimacy with God, humility grows in the writer, as well as other Godly qualities, one of those being hatred for sin, likely his own, as well as the sin he sees around him. “I would rather do nondescript, unnoticed work for God and receive His favor, His nearness, than observe or take part in what the wicked do.” What goes on in a “tent of wickedness” you ask? Whatever goes on behind closed doors where the understanding is that “no one knows what we’re doing in here, and they never will,” or “if they do find out, who cares, for we’re doing nothing wrong.” That makes for a really big pile of darkness. It makes for abused and neglected kids, abused and neglected wives, broken homes, shattered dreams, and among other things, diseased hearts, minds and/or bodies.
Yet on the other side you see the freedom and beauty of humility, issuing forth from a deep and close and delighted and delightful intimacy with God. In having God, he has everything, and that, in abundance.