Psalm 84:1 God of Heaven’s Armies, you find so much beauty in your people! They’re like lovely sanctuaries of your presence.
Psalm 84:2 Deep within me ate these lovesick longings, desires and daydreams of living in union with you. When I’m near you my heart and my soul will sing and worship with my joyful songs of you, my true source and spring of life!
Psalm 84:3 O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, my King and my God, even the sparrows and swallows are welcome to build a nest among your altars for the birds to raise their young.
Psalm 84:4 What pleasure fills those who live every day in your temple, enjoying you as they worship in your presence! Selah.
In this Psalm, we see the psalmist expresses his own sense of the loveliness of the place where God is worshipped, and his earnest longing to be near God. He illustrates this feeling by a beautiful image drawn from the sparrow and the swallow, small insignificant birds - building their nests unobstructed and unalarmed near the very altar of God. As if they must be happy to be so near to God, and to dwell peaceably there.
The idea here is, that the sparrows and the swallows are to be envied. They come freely to the place where God was worshipped, to the very altars, and make their home there undisturbed.
Matthew 10:29-31
You can buy two sparrows for only a copper coin, yet not even one sparrow falls from its nest without the knowledge of your Father. Aren’t you worth much more to God than many sparrows?
So don’t worry. For your Father cares deeply about even the smallest detail of your life.
He encourages them not to fear by two striking considerations: first, that God takes care of sparrows, the smallest and least valuable of birds; and, secondly, by the fact that God numbers even the hairs of the head. The argument is, that if He takes care of birds of the least value if He regards so small a thing as the hair of the head, and numbers it, He will certainly protect and provide for you. You need not, therefore, fear what man can do to you. He is not like the gods worshipped by many of the pagan, who were supposed to be so exalted, and so distant, that they did not interest themselves in human affairs; but He condescends to regard the needs of the meanest of his creatures. It is one of the glorious attributes of the true God, that he can and will thus notice the needs of the mean as well as the mighty; and one of the richest of all consolations when we are afflicted and are despised by the world, is the thought that we are not forgotten by our heavenly Father. He who remembers the falling sparrow, will not be unmindful of us.
Every true man’s life is charged with a purpose of God, which will mold it and master it, so as that it may best work out His glory. He who notes the fall of the sparrow sees, numbers, and knows each human soul