If you had only one day left to live, what would you choose to do? That’s the question that bubbles up in my mind when I read from today’s Psalm, “better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.” At the time when this Psalm was written, Jews of the ancient world didn’t believe in an afterlife. They believed all the dead dwelled in a shadowy sub-existent state in Sheol. Fleming Rutledge writes in her great work, The Crucifixion, “There is no meaningful life after death in the Old Testament world.” For ancient Israel, “Insubstantial nonexistence in Sheol was the destiny of all.” (FR, p 399) So when the psalmist writes, “better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere,” it’s like he’s imagining being given the choice—you can have either one more day to live on earth, where you can enjoy God’s presence before going to Sheol, or live a thousand more days but without sensing God’s presence with you. One day to live with God…a thousand days to live without him. Which would you choose?
I think the answer to this question depends largely on what our lived experience with God has been like. Are we so aware of God’s felt presence in our lives that we would choose like the psalmist did? Or is our experience of life in the Spirit more like coming to church, going through the motions, and leaving feeling like somehow, we didn’t quite get into the dwelling place of the Lord? Like we’ve gotten close but been left outside? Is it possible to live with such an awareness of God’s felt presence in our lives that we would say, “take my life, as long as I can have one more day with Jesus?”
We’ve all heard stories by now of the Asbury Revival. Where just a dozen or so students stayed and lingered in the Chapel to worship Jesus. By all accounts, it wasn’t even great worship music. There was no planned set list. No smoke machines. Just raw worship. A desire to linger in the Presence. There were a million other things those students could have chosen to do that day, but they chose to linger in the Presence of God. And then his Presence built and built until the glory of the Lord filled that Chapel space like we find in our reading from 1 Kings 8.
When was the last time you had a million things to do, or even just a handful, and chose instead to linger in the Presence?
Oh, if we could grasp the beauty and power of being in God’s presence! Have we ever tasted his goodness, love, and presence enough that we long for, even yearn for more of him? Where our deepest desire is for encounter with the living God and so a holy discontent for the spiritual status quo drives us to seek out more of him? What would it be like to actually expect God to show up when we worshipped him? To encounter him in a tangible way? Two of our readings today give us clues to the heart posture required of us if we want to encounter God in our midst.
Psalm 84 is an ode to dwelling in the presence of the Lord. The Psalmist writes:
How lovely are Your dwelling places, O Lord of hosts!
My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord…
Even Your altars, O Lord of hosts, My King and my God.
How blessed are those who dwell in Your house!
They are ever praising You.
The psalmist uses a variety of words to describe God’s house—beginning with the building itself before moving deeper into the heart of the house of worship. But the word describing the structure itself is not an architectural term, but rather the phrase, “dwelling places.” This reminds us that God takes up residence with us when we worship. God’s first House of Worship was a tent of meeting called the Tabernacle. “To tabernacle” means to dwell, to take up residence, to be with. Strikingly, Jesus’ name, Immanuel, also describes God’s movement toward us to be with us.
Next, and progressing deeper into the Temple itself, the psalmist uses the word “courts” to describe the courtyard of the Temple; before finally, moving us deeper into the heart of the Temple, into the very presence of God, when he uses the word “altar,” the place where the sacrifice is made. In ancient days, these were animal sacrifices. What is our sacrifice today? What sacrifice do we bring into the house of God? Nothing less than the laying down of our very selves—our will, our sin and our need for control. Repentance is required to experience the Presence of God.
Our other Scripture for today from 1 Kings 8 is also about the house of the Lord, when King Solomon had just completed construction of the Temple. We pick up our reading at the consecration of the Temple and the installation of the Ark of the Covenant.
Before we continue, we must understand the importance of the Ark of the Covenant. For you Raiders of the Lost Ark fans, yes, this is that Ark! The Ark was a 4’ x 2’ wooden box, overlaid in gold, and was the place of the Presence of God. It was first housed in the Tabernacle in the wilderness. After Israel settled in Canaan, the Tabernacle and the Ark were moved to Shiloh when Saul was king. The Ark was taken by the Philistines and then was moved from place to place for about 20 years until King David sought to return it to its rightful place in the Tabernacle.
And here, David does an interesting thing. He returns the Ark to the Tabernacle, but moves the Tabernacle from Shiloh to the City of David so it can be right next door to his palace. David was seeking proximity with God. Intimacy. 24/7 access to God. David is seeking the Presence. David throws a huge worship party to praise God when the Ark is returned to the Tabernacle. Likewise, Solomon’s dedication of the Temple is also epic. This is where we pick up our reading.
All the furniture and utensils from the old Tabernacle are brought from the City of David to the new Temple in Jerusalem and are set in place. The very last item to be put into place is the Ark. The place of the Presence. The priests place the Ark of the Covenant in the most Holy Place in the Temple. I’ll read what happens next in 2 Chronicles 5. 11 – 14:
“When the priests came out from the holy place and all the Levitical singers with cymbals, harps, and lyres, standing east of the altar, and with them 120 priests blowing trumpets in unison, when the trumpeters and the singers were to make themselves heard with one voice to praise and to glorify the Lord, and when they raised their voices accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and other musical instruments, and when they praised the Lord saying, “He indeed is good for His kindness is everlasting,” then the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not rise to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.”
When God’s Presence comes in a real and tangible way, there is no other response but to fall facedown. We must not read this and discount it as something that can only happen in the ancient days. We saw this at Asbury; it still happens today. I read these verses and my heart explodes with yearning! Do we want revival? In our hearts? In our church? In our community? Could we at Good Sam experience something like this today?
What can we learn from these two passages of Scripture about a heart posture that welcomes Holy Spirit to move freely in our midst? This is not prescriptive, it’s not an if…then equation. But what we notice are present when God is on the move. Repentance, praise, longing.
First, we notice Repentance. Lavish, outrageous repentance. 1 Kings 8. 5 says this—
“And King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel, who were assembled to him, were with him before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen they could not be counted or numbered.”
They were assembled before the Altar, lost in repentance, because repentance doesn’t declare us “Condemned” but “Cleansed” so we can be restored to right relationship with God and welcome his Presence among us.
We also notice in Psalm 84 the centrality of the altar. Our effectiveness to serve as ministers of God—which we all are as a nation of priests, a royal priesthood—begins with repentance. Experiencing the presence of God in our midst depends on our repentance. Repentance is a pre-requisite to encounter.
Secondly, we notice Praise. This wasn’t quiet, private worship. This was bold corporate praise. Solomon assembled all the elders of Israel, all the heads of tribes, all the heads of households, all the priests, all the Levitical singers and musicians playing cymbals, harps, lyres, and trumpets. This was a wild praise party!
We read in Psalm 84 that those who dwell in God’s house are “ever praising him.” Our posture when we come into the house of the Lord is to be that of praise. The psalmist, Asaph, writes in Ps. 73. 28 MSG—“I’m in the very presence of God—oh, how refreshing it is! I’ve made the Lord God my home.” Praise is the language we speak when the Lord is our home. Praise brings Presence. Praise always precedes power. We praise not because we want to get something from God but because our heart’s posture is – “I can’t help myself but to praise God!” Do we want to sense God’s tangible presence as we worship him? It begins with praise. Raw, unabashed, un-buttoned-up praise. Our repentance and praise prepare the way to usher in his Presence.
In Psalm 84, the psalmist writes that if we want to live connected to the Presence of God, then we must praise him not just in the good times, but also when weeping has stolen our joy.
He writes—
“How blessed is the man whose strength is in You,
In whose heart are the highways to Zion!
Passing through the valley of Baca (weeping) they make it a spring;
The early rain also covers it with blessings.
They go from strength to strength,
Every one of them appears before God in Zion.
The picture here is, even as the human heart has a highway of arteries and veins that flow from it—pumping blood to bring life and vitality to our bodies—so too, when we make God our dwelling place, all the highways of our spiritual heart flow back to him. So we can encounter trials, uncertainties, defeat—and instead of being undone in the Valley of Weeping, the Lord God wells up in us a spring of Hope and faith and courage—so that we can go from strength to strength in the midst of the challenge. The invitation for us is not to wait for the difficult season to end before we praise, but to praise God in the midst of our difficulties.
And finally, we notice Longing. The purpose of God’s House is encounter. The people who dwell in a house of prayer who don’t skimp on repentance and praise, will encounter the living God. Perhaps that hasn’t been your experience. Do you long for more of God’s Presence? That longing is itself an invitation from God to come closer. There’s more intimacy available for you. Ask God for more of his Spirit. Jesus tells his followers in Luke 11. 9 – 13:
“So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened. Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”
Jesus tells us to ask the Father for more of the Holy Spirit. The problem is, so many of us who are feeling dry spiritually forget to ask him for more! There is always more available to us in the spiritual life. Not just in the days of Solomon but in our day as well. The same Holy Spirit who filled the Temple lives in us if we have called on Jesus as our Lord and Savior. The same Presence is available to you today. Go back for Prayer Ministry.
Do you long to experience the closeness of the Presence of God so that you too can say, “a day in God’s courts better than a thousand elsewhere? Then come. Ask him for more. No matter how far off you may feel from God, know that he wants you to encounter his presence. He longs for intimacy with you. Draw near to him and he will draw near to you.
