Psalm 84:10, 12 (NIV)
Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. Lord Almighty, blessed is the one who trusts in you.
There was a poster back in the 80’s that was very popular and certainly caught my attention as I was finishing up high school and looking forward to college. It features a fabulous coastal mansion at sunset with a helicopter on the pad and a yacht down at the dock. The five-car underground garage holds exotic sportscars – a Porsche, two Ferraris, a Lamborghini, and a Jaguar. At the top it states: JUSTIFICATION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION. The promise was intoxicating…but ridiculous. Like so many young people in the “Decade of Greed,” I bought the lie and started my pursuit. Surely happiness could be found “in the tents of the wicked” (v. 10).
There are some enormously successful Christians in the world and that is not a problem in and of itself, but Psalm 84 brings into focus what our “poster of success” should actually be: God Himself. Writing for John Piper’s blog on Psalm 84:10, Jimmy Needham notes that, “A Christian is someone who knows no higher joy than God. No surplus of trinkets, no company-keeping among the powerful or wealthy, can compete with the appeal God has. They’ve seen what the world has to offer and have found it wanting. Shiny stuff bores the saints.” Do the things of the world capture our attention more than the things of God? Is the Gospel primarily about getting out of hell and into heaven…or about getting God?
Psalm 84 was most likely written by David, who spent many a season away from the Holy City, and it depicts a soul that “yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord” (v. 2a). Imagine his delight as he was returning from war and could see out in the distance the city on a hill called Jerusalem. But it is important to note that it wasn’t the city itself that he longed for…it was simply to be closer to God. David explained that “my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God” (v. 2b). Not the gathering of God’s people, though that is important (Heb. 10:25). And it wasn’t the joy of his salvation, although that is certainly a grand and glorious thing (Ps. 51:12). The Apostle Peter nailed it hundreds of years later when he wrote, “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Pt. 3:18). It was the presence of our Creator that David longed for.
As Christians, we have access to a myriad of gifts that are wondrous in their own right (Eph. 1:3): Forgiveness of our sins (Is. 43:25). Relief from God’s wrath (Rom. 5:9). Escape from hell (Rev. 20:15). Heaven forever (Lk. 23:43). The promise of a new glorified body in a new heaven and new earth (Rom. 8:18–24). But for the Christian, these are not ultimately what we want to see on our Success Poster. Our main gift in the gospel is God. “Blessed is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere,” not because His courts will be beyond our imagination in their grandeur and beauty, but simply because He is there. Would you rather be a “door holder” there than the person who owns all that stuff on the poster? That’s a question we all need to ask ourselves.
