WHERE IS YOUR HAPPY PLACE?

Psalms 84:1-12 (KJV)

How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts!

My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.

Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God.

Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah.

Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them.

Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.

They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.

O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.

Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed.

For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.

For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.

Have you ever been in maybe a dentist’s chair and the assistant says something like, “Find your happy place.”

Because of the subject of my message today I took a few minutes to look at what people are saying about “The Happy Place.”

I found one site called “How to find your happy place in 10 easy steps.” But I think each step had ten steps too.

Another site called “the best brain possible” had an article on how to find your happy place and offered these steps:

·   Recall happy memories

·   Think of happy things

·   Have a happy daydream and

·   Make a happy go-to list

Another site has an article entitled, “Turns out happy places are real.”

That title, together with the title of another article called “Where is your happy place?”

Sets up for the message I want to preach this morning.

I agree that happy places are real – not imaginative, or existing in your dreams.

I just want to ask you today, “Where is your happy place?”

Our Psalmist had a happy place; it was called

·   the courts of the Lord,

·   God’s tabernacles, or

·   the House of God.

You and I would call it church.

Notice five things the Psalmist says about his happy place:

I. A PLACE OF SATISFACTION

Psalms 84:1-2 (KJV)

How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts!

My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.

The word amiable means, “beloved.”

This is a place he likes to be.

There are some people who just love being at church.

·   They come early

·   They stay late

·   When a revival meeting is planned – they attend

·   When a church work day is scheduled, they show up

·   Some of them plan their vacations so they have time off when something special is happening at church

·   Some of them check ahead to make sure they won’t be on vacation and out of town, when something special is happening at church

You watch and see if you don’t agree, over the course of time, those people will be the one who seem to do best in their lives in general.

Is it true every time? No.

Can you see it immediately? Usually not.

But generally speaking and over the long term, it is a truth.

One statistic that people like to throw around is that more than 50% of all marriages end in divorce AND they like to point out that that number is the same among professing Christians as it is among everyone else.

Wait a minute.

But when you factor in those Christians who attend church more than one service per week, the number drops dramatically.

The Psalmist says secondly that the house of God is,

II. A PLACE OF SANCTUARY

Psalms 84:3-4 (KJV)

Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God.

Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah.

Sparrows and swallows are two distinct birds, but I couldn’t tell you which one is which.

I know that both of them are found pretty much everywhere in the world

As far as winged creatures go, my opinion is that they are about as useless as anything that exists.

They eat bugs I guess, but it’s pretty much a toss up which is more of a nuisance, the birds or the bugs.

I know that, technically speaking, some good things can be said of sparrows and swallows.

The point is that this passage isn’t looking for those good qualities.

The sparrows and swallows are spoken of here precisely because my generalizations are generally those of most people.

I believe they represent us,

·   Humans

·   People

That there are sparrows and swallows, reminds us of the fact that there are two “sorts” of people in this world:

·   Jews

·   Gentiles

But the truth is, there is very little difference between them:

·   God loves both of them

·   Neither of them deserve it

And either one of them can find a sanctuary, a home, in the house of the Lord.

It matters not:

·   How unimportant you think you are

·   How mediocre you believe yourself to be

·   How bad you know you have behaved

You are welcome to

·   Come to God

·   Ask His forgiveness

·   Seek His salvation and

·   Find a home in the local church

·   God’s going to want to clean up the mess you have made of your life

·   God’s going to straighten you out if you start to build in the wrong places (false doctrines)

But if you come to Him in faith, God will in no wise turn you away.[1]

Then the Psalmist says the house of the Lord is,

III. A PLACE OF STRENGTH

Psalms 84:5-7 (KJV)

Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them.

Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.

They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.

There are a few things addresses here:

A. The blessed man finds strength in God, not himself

Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee

Americans hate this.

Everything in us says

·   That we can be self made

·   That we can pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

Really happy people figure out that is just not true.

B. The blessed man shares the strength God gives Him.

Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well

In other words, when you have the ability to do so, you try to help someone who is in a low time in their life.

You dig a well for them and God uses that to fill up their dry spell.

C. The blessed man doesn’t store up strength, but accepts it from others when necessary

They go from strength to strength

·   I have some strength right now so I am going to go dig a well.

·   By the time I am done I will be tapped out, so what am I going to do?

·   I am going to appreciate the well someone digs for me.

I guarantee you, if you try to hold onto it for yourself, God will dry it up on you.

You may still have all that you have, but you won’t have blessing and happiness with it.

Fourthly the Psalmist says God’s house is

IV. A PLACE OF SUPPLICATION

Psalms 84:8-9 (KJV)

O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.

Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed.

I have been praying for a pretty major miracle for about 3 years now.

I told someone that

·   it might not be as big as God parting of the Red Sea, but

·   it might be as big as God standing the Jordan River on a heap.

In the process of my prayer life concerning this miracle, I began compiling a list of God’s miracles in my life.

It would not be wise or prudent of me to read the whole list to you, but I want to give you a few of them:

1. Miracle of salvation

2. Miracle of deliverance from tobacco

3. Miracle of provision for move to Denver

4. Miracle of job on the seventh day in Denver

5. Miracle of college in Denver

6. Miracle of teaching job for Anita in August once we decided to go to college there

7. Miracle of Don Smith and me starting two Platteville Baptist Churches the same time. We became a team without having met previously.

8. Miracle of manifold provisions, while planting LCBC: piano, tires, Rr bill for Bohannan's birth, carpet

9. Miracle of Bayview Baptist approaching me about merging

10. Miracle of being building debt free in 1993

11. The miracle of becoming Exec VP at PCBBC a week after arriving

12. The miracle of negotiating the sale of the campus in San Dimas

13. The miracle of the college campus in OKC coming available at the very same time

14. Miracle of God's calling to BBC Puyallup

15. Miracle of providing a house for my parents at exactly the time we were going to try to buy them one.

Every one of these is in answer to prayer.

What I am saying is that there is real joy in praying and getting answers to those prayers.

Finally the Psalmist said that the House of God is,

V. A PLACE OF SERVICE

Psalms 84:10-12 (KJV)

For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.

For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.

·   He wasn’t looking for his name to be recorded in history.

·   He wasn’t demanding that God make him the head of the deacons

He was happy being a doorkeeper in the house of God.

I’m telling you if you will be happy just being in church and serving in whatever way is needed, God will bless you and you will be happy.

Conclusion

Is everything that happens at church always happy? No.

But what happens here leads to happiness.

·   Churches go through times of testing and hardship.

·   Churches sometimes endure trials and splits

·   You’ll get your feelings hurt at church.

·   You’ll get under conviction and maybe mad at church

·   You’ll be asked to give up time you don’t think you have and

·   You’ll be urged to give away money you don’t think you can afford

But

·   When everything is said and done

·   When the last breath on earth is drawn

·   When you close your eyes down here and open them up there

I promise you, you will be happy you loved your church.

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[1] John 6:37 (KJV)

All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.