Psalm 84 (Summer of Psalms #5)

We live in a culture that tells us to chase happiness — it is written into our founding documents. But the chase leaves most of us tired and disappointed. What we are actually longing for is peace. Psalm 84 is one of the sweetest places in Scripture to find it.

The Song That Wasn’t About Pringles

About ten years ago the comedian and musician Bo Burnham released a Netflix special called Make Happy. I have not watched the whole thing, and based on the language and themes I would not recommend it to you — so just let me tell you about it instead. But the final song is a brilliant work of art.

He starts singing, all autotuned, about his problems. Problem one: you cannot get your hand into a Pringles can. Once you are down near the bottom you simply cannot reach, so you end up tipping the whole thing over your face. Problem two: he went to Chipotle and asked for so much in his burrito that they could not wrap it. Stuff spilling everywhere. “I wanted a burrito so I could hold it. I don’t want to eat a burrito with a fork.”

People are laughing. Then the song gets quieter, and you slowly realize it was never about Pringles cans or overstuffed burritos. It is about Bo and his mental health. He thought he could fit more in. He has not been able to reach what he is grasping for. And now everything is spilling out — including his pain, right there in the lyrics:

Come and watch the skinny kid with the steadily declining mental health, and laugh as he attempts to give you what he cannot give himself.

The lights go wild, the song builds to a crescendo, and then — everything goes black. The music stops. One light shines on him, and he says quietly: “Thank you. Good night. I hope you’re happy.”

Chasing Happiness, Longing for Peace

For years, surveys have shown that what people in the Western Hemisphere say they want most is happiness. Ask the same question in the Eastern Hemisphere and you are far more likely to hear that what they want is peace. But something has shifted in the last five to ten years. A 2022 Pew Research survey found Westerners increasingly answering like their Eastern counterparts: I don’t know that I want happiness. I think what I really want is peace.

Listening to that song, from a special literally called Make Happy, it was obvious to me that Bo was not after happiness. He was after peace.

I am not pitting the two against each other — we will see today that they are linked. But because the pursuit of happiness is codified in our Declaration of Independence, we feel obligated as good Americans to chase it. And in the chasing we end up disappointed, hurting, and writing autotuned songs about our problems.

Do not misunderstand me — happiness is wonderful. It is a delight when your team wins the championship. It is fun to get a new toy. There is real enjoyment in another spoonful of ice cream. And yet the glory of the championship always fades, the new toy stops being new, and the spoon somehow always ends up empty. So we climb back onto the happiness treadmill and chase after the wind.

That is why so many people turn to the Psalms. Sometimes we go to the psalms of lament — we have looked at a couple this summer — and hearing someone else pour out his pain reminds us that we are not alone in ours. Other times we turn to the psalms of praise, which lift our eyes out of the mess and remind us that there is someone good, someone who loves us, someone who is for us and powerful and present.

Psalm 84 is one of those. Charles Spurgeon, the famed English pastor of the 1800s known as the Prince of Preachers, called it one of the sweetest of the psalms of peace. It has comforted Jews and Christians alike for centuries and been set to music countless times. My hope is that by the end of this it will be a beloved psalm for you too.

Who Wrote This — and Why It Matters

Before verse 1 there is a superscription, a little mini-introduction, and it tells us who wrote this psalm: the sons of Korah.

We meet Korah himself back in Numbers 16. He is a Levite — the tribe that oversaw Israel’s religious life — out in the wilderness with Moses. And he is not happy. He and three other Levite leaders recruit 250 chiefs of the people to bring a charge against Moses. Essentially: Who put you in charge? Why do you exalt yourself above us? It is a coup. The wilderness is miserable, food is uncertain, Egypt looked better, and they think they could do this job better.

Moses falls on his face — he never wanted the job — and cries out to God. What follows is a test involving incense and censers, and as the men come before God with their families, the ground opens up. A massive sinkhole. They are swallowed by the earth.

If you are new to the Bible you may be thinking, I thought today was about peace — that is a devastating story. Here is why I tell it. Those usurpers and their families died, with one exception. Numbers 26:11 points out specifically that the sons of Korah did not.

And the sons of Korah did not respond by raging at God for taking their father, or by cowering in terror before a God who can open the ground and swallow 250 people at once. They chose to worship Him. They became worship leaders for the people of Israel, and their sons and grandsons carried on the name. Eleven of their psalms are in our Bible — including this one. I cannot help wondering whether it is precisely because they experienced the mercy of God that songs like this poured out of them.

How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord… 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. — Psalm 84:1–3 (ESV)

When I was an innocent and naive twenty-year-old, I fell hard for a girl named Leanne. In that moment it was as if every other woman on the planet turned invisible. Before Leanne, honestly, if any girl had shown a flicker of interest I would have fallen for her. After Leanne, a hundred could have asked for my number and I would not have heard a word.

Reading Psalm 84, the sons of Korah sound like a twenty-year-old me — completely enraptured, wanting nothing more than to be with this God. And in this poem of love and longing, they show us five places peace is found.

1. Rest in God

Verse 1 says, “How lovely is your dwelling place.” If these are the direct descendants of the Korah of Numbers 16, they likely have the tabernacle in mind — the curtained enclosure with a tent at the center that traveled with Israel through the wilderness. Later generations of this same family write about Jerusalem and the temple, so we cannot be certain which they mean.

What I learned this week is that the Hebrew word translated “place” is actually plural. You could render it dwelling places. It is as though they recognize that God is so glorious He cannot be contained in a tent or a building — He is omnipresent, and wherever you go, that is His dwelling place. And that place is lovely.

So lovely, in fact, that it is not only humans who want to be there. Even the sparrows and swallows want to be in His presence. Throughout Scripture sparrows are among the lowest of the animal kingdom — you could buy them at market for a penny, practically worthless. And yet God treasures them. Jesus says as much in Matthew 6: birds do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and God provides everything they need. How much more will He provide for you, who are far more valuable than sparrows?

But notice where they build their nests: at your altars. The altar is the place of sacrifice — often a blood sacrifice. And in the Levitical law, if someone could not afford a lamb, provision was made to bring two turtledoves or two pigeons. Birds. Different birds, yes, but it still seems strange to raise your young next to the place where your cousins are being killed.

Ed showed us something last week in Psalm 76 that helps here: God is so awesome that He is terrifying. He made humanity with a breath, and could unmake it with one. Yet Psalm 76 says God is known in Judah — not merely known about, but known intimately, like family. How do we come into the presence of a God like that? Because at the cross, that power was not turned against us. It was turned against sin and the sting of death.

When you see the heart of that God toward you — that He provides everything you need, just as He does for the sparrows — of course you want to build your nest and rest right there at the altar. He is good. He is trustworthy. He is powerful. And He wants you.

2. Abide in God

“Blessed are those who dwell in your house” (v. 4). That word “blessed” can also be translated happy — and here is where happiness and peace start to interlock. But this is not the happiness of a raise, a promotion, or a good meal. This is the happiness of dwelling in the house of your Lord.

To dwell means to remain. There is endurance in it, and there is deep rest in it. We are called to abide in God — to let Him be our strength, to let Him be everything. That is where peace begins.

3. Exalt in God

The second half of verse 4 says those who dwell in God’s house are “ever singing your praise.” They are so happy they cannot stop.

This is exactly why I keep urging you not to chase happiness. Chase it and you will get it for a moment, then lose it, then chase the next thing — what Solomon in Ecclesiastes calls chasing after the wind. But pursue peace, simply resting and abiding in God, and you begin to experience what Paul describes in Philippians 4: a peace that surpasses understanding, a peace that guards your heart and mind. And you will find yourself happy.

Pursue happiness and you will probably miss it. Pursue peace and happiness usually follows. The sons of Korah show us that brilliantly: dwell with God, remain in Him, and the happiness you were chasing comes along behind.

4. Be Protected by God

Then, in the middle of all this peaceful imagery — birds, singing, lovely dwelling places — military language suddenly appears. “Blessed are those whose strength is in you” (v. 5). “They go from strength to strength” (v. 7). “Behold our shield, O God” (v. 9). “The Lord God is a sun and a shield” (v. 11). Most tellingly, God is repeatedly called the “Lord of hosts” — which could just as well be translated Lord God of heavenly armies, or even Lord God of war.

Why does war language show up in a psalm of peace? Because God is powerful enough to protect you — and being protected is what produces peace. It is as if the sons of Korah already knew Paul would write in Romans 8:31 that if God is for us, who can be against us?

This raises a real difficulty. You get in a car accident, the money disappears, you stub your toe getting out of bed, and you think: God, I thought you were protecting me. Are you not powerful enough? Do you not love me enough? Are you even real?

I do believe God can protect us physically. But this entire psalm is describing a protection of the heart. It is about inner peace — and that is what you need first and most. Consider: nearly everyone reading this has been physically injured, and some of those injuries you cannot even remember. But many of you have been emotionally injured, and those wounds stay far longer and hurt far worse. Before physical protection, what you need is emotional, mental, and spiritual protection. That is found in God — letting Him be your shield, letting Him be your strength, letting the Lord of hosts stand over you.

It is like a little girl running into her father’s arms. She knows those arms are capable of doing her great harm, and she runs into them anyway, because she trusts the man they belong to — and because he will protect her from the enemy that is her big sister.

5. Simply Be with God

The fifth point wraps the other four inside it. I started at verse 3 partly because it mentions birds and that is a joke about my last name — but really because I wanted to save this for the end, which is exactly what the sons of Korah do. They open with it and they close with it, like beautiful bookends.

Verses 1–2: “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.” They want nothing more than to be with Him.

Then verse 10: “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.” They would take the lowest position in God’s house over being rich, influential, and powerful anywhere else. They will give up anything for a portion of their God.

Could you write that honestly? I know I could not. And after thirty-plus years of ministry, I do not know many who could. We will say those words. We will sing them. We will write them, and we will mean well, because words like that are inspiring — even, dare I say, romantic. But look at our actual behavior, our words, our thoughts, and it becomes clear we do not want God more than everything else. We want some God mixed into our lives. Mostly we want the job. The marriage. More money. Because then we will be happy.

And God says that is so misplaced. I just want you to be with me, because it is in me — your Creator, your heavenly Father — that you will find everything you are looking for. Better is one day in my courts than a thousand elsewhere.

God Has Always Wanted to Be with You

If you doubt that, look at the high points of the Christian calendar. Every Christmas we celebrate the coming of Immanuel — God with us — the incarnation, God taking on flesh to be with us. And at Easter, when Jesus breathes His last on the cross, the curtain of the temple guarding the Holy of Holies is torn from top to bottom. The presence of God has come out to us, and we are now invited in.

God wants to be with you. He wants you to rest in Him and abide in Him. He wants to protect you, because He knows that is where you will find your greatest joy — and where you will exalt Him.

So take a moment and do all five. Breathe in God’s grace; breathe out your worries, your fears, the unknowns, and rest. Then ask: is there something you have been impatient about, wanting God to hand it over now? That is a failure to abide. Confess it, and ask Him for the strength to remain. And if something has left you feeling vulnerable, with your pain pouring out, come underneath His protection and let Him be your shield.

He is the all-powerful, genuinely terrifying God — capable of opening sinkholes, of building planets, of making human beings with nothing but a breath. And He is a loving God who is for you and with you. Wherever you go, there He is. You can always be with Him.