We Are God's House
He is not limited to buildings made of brick and stone.
For the Chief Musician. On an instrument of Gath. A Psalm by the sons of Korah.
Psalm 84
1 How lovely are your dwellings,
Yahweh of Armies!
2 My soul longs, and even faints for the courts of Yahweh.
My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
3 Yes, the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young,
near your altars, Yahweh of Armies, my King, and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house.
They are always praising you. Selah.
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on a pilgrimage.
6 Passing through the valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs.
Yes, the autumn rain covers it with blessings.
7 They go from strength to strength.
Every one of them appears before God in Zion.
8 Yahweh, God of Armiesl, hear my prayer.
Listen, God of Jacob. Selah.
9 Behold, God our shield,
look at the face of your anointed.
10 For a day in your courts is better than a thousand.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God,
than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
11 For Yahweh God is a sun and a shield.
Yahweh will give grace and glory.
He withholds no good thing from those who walk blamelessly.
12 Yahweh of Armies,
blessed is the man who trusts in you.
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This song of Praise tells us that we are blessed wherever we can find God’s presence, whether it is in a courtyard built for that purpose, or in a valley of despair. His presence will turn such a place into rivers of living water. We do not have to seek refuge in a church or a temple. He sojourns through this world with us.
Wherever the Old Testament patriarchs experienced the presence of God, it was there that they set up an altar. Jacob called the place where he built an altar Bethel, which means, House of God. When Moses led the people out of Egypt and through the desert to the Promised Land, the presence went with them as a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. And when Jesus led some of his disciples to the mountain where he was transfigured, Peter wanted to build a tabernacle there.
It is a good thing that we have built churches as witnesses in our communities. But even a good thing can become a snare, as the bronze serpent did when Moses was instructed to make it so that the people could look at it and live. Eventually the people began to worship it instead of the Lord and the bronze serpent had to be destroyed.
We call our churches sanctuaries, and in a way that is what they are. We have used them as places to shut out the world where we can worship God. But we have forgotten that we take the presence of God with us to the outside world. The gates of hell are not supposed to prevail against us. We are supposed to take the light to dark places to dispel the darkness. We are not told to take the light inside and hide from the darkness.
We have trained ourselves to keep our faith on the lowdown. As much as we might admire someone who talks about Jesus out loud in a public place, we are slow to join in. We have believed the lie that our faith in God is a private thing. We have been told specifically in the Great Commission to preach the gospel to all people, and to acknowledge Christ before men. But we have talked to ourselves out of it. We think we are being wise to remain hidden. But what we are really doing is burying what God has given us in the ground. We are not trying to reproduce it.
Matthew 25:28 Take away therefore the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will be given, and he will have abundance, but from him who doesn’t have, even that which he has will be taken away. 30 Throw out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
