Hear our prayer, O Lord, hear our prayer, O Lord, make thy way to us and grant us thy peace. Amen. Our scripture text for this morning is Psalm 87. So if you would turn to Psalm 87 and hear the word of God from Psalm 87. The Psalm of the sons of Korah, a song. On the holy mount stands the city he founded. The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Glorious things of you are spoken, O city of God. Among those who know me, I mention Rahab and Babylon. Behold, Philistia and Tyre with Cush. This one was born there, they say. And of Zion, it shall be said, this one and that one were born in her. For the Most High himself will establish her. The Lord records as He registers the people, this one was born there. Singers and dancers alike say, all my springs are in You. This is the Word of God. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for the reading and the hearing of Your Word, which itself is a means of grace. Holy Spirit, we pray that You would do Your work enlighten our hearts and our minds to hear, to understand, to receive, to believe, and to obey your word. Lord, plant your word in our hearts to bear fruit in our lives. Now, Lord, we come to the preaching of your word. You've called men to this task. You have set them apart by the laying on of hands, and yet these men, as are those within the congregation, are sinners who need the same gospel for themselves that they offer to others when they preach. Men with feet of clay, they are earthen jars. And yet you delight to glorify yourself by filling these jars with glory, especially in the preaching of your word. So Lord, grant the unction and the power of the Holy Spirit to your servant in the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. This visit is long overdue. I don't know how many times in session meetings your pastor has raised the question, Lacey, when are you going to be able to come and visit? And the Lord's been blessing our regional church, our Presbytery, to such an extent that we have currently 10 mission works. Lord willing, we will be back to 11 after April. We've never had that many before in the history of the Presbytery. And typically, a number of those are without pastors. You have the blessing of having had a pastor here from the very beginning of this work. That's unusual. Most of the times we begin with a group of individuals, sometimes quite small, and my work is to help develop that group to get them to the place, the calling of an organizing pastor. And so we have mission works that don't have pastors. I'm tied up in preaching in those mission works. But Lord willing, after April, we will have 11 mission works and 10 organizing pastors in those 11 mission works. We've never had that before either, which is freeing up my schedule. And so as that schedule is freeing up, the very first mission work that I am visiting is this one that has a pastor. A couple of weeks I'll be in Kannapolis with David Vogel there, but this is the first. You were first on the list, and it's my delight to be back here with you. As we come to this text, I'm going to give you the whole thing. I found out I do have enough time to do it before the next church gets here. There are those within mission works within the Presbytery of the Southeast and churches within the Presbytery of the Southeast who think I only have one book in my Bible and that's the Psalms. Because I have preached so much from the Psalms and I do love the Psalms but I do have a New Testament. And I do preach sometimes from the New Testament as well. But about 15 years ago, a book was released by Dr. Oppheimer Robertson called The Flow of the Psalms. And I was particularly prepared to receive that book when I did. And in so doing, it just has altered and changed my understanding of the Psalms ever since. I've actually developed three courses that I teach at Grand Bible College in the summers on a rotating basis in the Psalms. One is on the flow and the arrangement of the Psalms of the Psalter. That will be this summer. If anyone's interested in sitting in on the course, all you have to do is send me your email. I have people from our mission works that sit on the courses I teach every Thursday night at Grand Bible College, even now. If anyone's interested in that course, it will be this summer. We'll lecture for five weeks, and then those who take it for credit, they will be doing their final examinations and their papers. But usually I'll have two or three that take it for credit. maybe 10 or 15 or sometimes 20 that will just sit in on the courses. And I'll be doing that this summer. But one of the things that helped me in Dr. Robertson's book, and then also teaching supplementally Dr. Michael Morales. I don't know how many of you may know of Dr. Morales. He's the biblical theology professor at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. is that there is a purpose in the arrangement of the Psalms. And the deeper I dive into this, the more clear that becomes. And I try to make that clear within this particular course. But it was Dr. Morales that helped me see that there's a chronology to be seen in the five books in the Psalter. And you might think, well, there's 150 Psalms. Why do you say five books? Because 150 Psalms are divided up into five books. You can see it right there when you open up your Bible. Above Psalm 1, it says Book 1. Above Psalm 42, it says Book 2. Above Psalm 73, it says Book 3. Above Psalm 90, it says Book 4. And above Psalm 107, it says Book 5. Right there in your Bibles. Most people know that it has five books, but don't have any idea why. I didn't, quite frankly, until about 10 years ago. But it's Dr. Morales that helped me to see that the whole of the Psalter, that is all of the Psalms, are rooted and grounded in the covenant that God made with David. And if you fly over The Psalms at 36,000 feet. And if you look down, and you know how to look, you'll see there is a chronology that's there. Rooted in the history of God's covenant with David and the Davidic kingdom. So that book one can be summarized under the heading, The Rise of the Davidic Kingdom. Book two, the glory of the Davidic kingdom, which came to its full extent under the old covenant during the reign of Solomon. And it's interesting, the last psalm of that book was written by Solomon. Psalm 72 was written by Solomon. Book three, the collapse of the Davidic kingdom. The fall of the Northern Kingdom, 722 BC. The fall of the Southern Kingdom, ultimately 587-586 BC to the Babylonians. Book four, the absence of the Divided Kingdom, which corresponds with the Babylonian captivity. And then book five, the return of the king. which begins with the return of God's people to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem to resettle the land in preparation for the coming of the one who would be David's son, who would be Messiah himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, they had to wait 500 years before David's greater son would come. I could demonstrate all that if I had time. I'm not going to take the time to do that now, but I think that it's clear. Our psalm comes to us in book three, and this is surprising. Because book three, if Dr. Morales is correct, I think he's correct, is about the collapse of the Davidic kingdom. Psalm 87 is about the glory of Mount Zion. Also, if you turn back a couple of Psalms to Psalm 84, it's about the glory of the house of God. These are two Psalms that we love. Psalm 84 that speaks about the temple and the worship of God in his house and sparrows have a place to build their nest. You see the security of the worship of God in the temple in Psalm 84. In Psalm 87 you see the stability and the strength of Mount Zion, of the city of God itself and its glory in our psalm, Psalm 87. But this book is about the collapse of that kingdom. In fact, if you look before Psalm 84, the seven psalms that preceded, beginning with 77 and ending with 83, those psalms were all written by Asaph. All of those psalms refer in one way or another to the collapse. For instance, Psalm 89 describes the fall of Jerusalem. 587, 586 BC. Psalm 80 describes the aftermath of the fall of the northern kingdom in 722 BC. But then you have a change in authorship. From Asaph, seven of these 17 Psalms are dedicated to describing the collapse. But then you have a change in authorship to the Sons of Korah. From Asaph to the Sons of Korah, as you go to the end of that particular book. And it's in the midst of the Songs of Korah that we find the stability and strength of the temple of God, of the house of God, of the worship of God, and of the glory of the city that shall not be moved in a book that describes the destruction of both. And what do we take from that? Well, we realize that God's people broke covenant. God warned them. He sent prophets. The prophets said, repent or else judgment is coming. And then the latter prophets came and just said, or else, because they would not repent. Judgment is coming upon, yes, the house of David. And you see that in the collapse and then in the subsequent exile that took place for 70 years before the return. You need to understand your biblical history to understand biblical theology and as it undergirds the Psalms. Psalm 84 and Psalm 87 remind us that though Israel broke covenant with God, God does not break a covenant with his people. There's a Hebrew word, it's called hesed, God's covenantal faithfulness. And that's why I think we find 84 and 87 where we do here in the Psalter. Psalm 87. Let's look at how we're going to break down this psalm. The first three verses, the glory of the church under the old covenant, the glory of Mount Zion, but as it comes into fulfillment in the church, the glory of the church, especially in the assembly, the Lord loves his church. That's the message really of the first three verses. And then we come to verse 4. We're going to see the universal scope of the church. Now, there are two possible interpretations of verse 4 and verse 5 as we see them. And I'm going to lay out both of them, but I will tell you the one that I think is the proper one to understand the text. But there's a message I want to demonstrate that's a true message from the other interpretation of the text. And then as you come to 5 and 6 we see the blessing of being born in covenant and children you know, whether you're born in covenant or whether you're in covenant through adoption or whatever means it is when Christ's name is placed upon you, these verses are for you. And we will see as we come to that particular text. And then the psalm begins with a praise or adoration of the church itself. So that's how we're going to break down this particular psalm. Let's look at the first three verses. On the holy mount stands the city he founded. The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Let's back up the text a little bit. that set this in terms of biblical theology. Anybody like geography? I like to study geography. Biblical geography is incredibly rich, and we see this here. We see that it is Mount Zion. It's on Mount Zion that God himself establishes the city. Yes, David chose Mount Zion. It was a fortification as David took it. And David's the one who built it as the holy city of God. But this was by God's design. Psalm 132 tells us that God chose, he elected Zion as his dwelling place forever. But let's think about Mount Zion. Let's think about it in the history leading up to the Davidic Kingdom. In fact, long before. There was a fortification that was there, a city there, that was called Salem in the Old Covenant on Mount Zion. It had a king whose name meant king of righteousness. You know who I'm referring to? He gets about two paragraphs in the book of Genesis. About two paragraphs. His name is Melchizedek. He is called the priest to Almighty God. And he's also the king of righteousness. And Abram goes to visit Melchizedek. And Melchizedek is greater than Abram. He's greater than Abraham. How do we know that? Because the lesser pays tithes to the greater. Abram brought tithes to Melchizedek. He was a priest to Almighty God. He gets two paragraphs in Genesis. But in Psalm 110, we see it developed further. We see that Messiah is coming who will not only be a king, but also be a priest, a priest after the order of Melchizedek. And then the book of Hebrews takes up that theme, the theme of Melchizedek, and develops the high priestly ministry of Jesus, which is not after the order of Aaron. It's greater than the order of Aaron. It's after the order of Melchizedek. This is the same mountain. This is Mount Zion. This is where Salem is located. Something else that you may not know in terms of geography. Jerusalem wasn't just built upon the peak that was called Mount Zion. That was the western slope of the city. The eastern slope of the city went by another name. That name was Moriah. Did you know that? You can read about it in the Chronicles. You can read about it when Solomon builds the temple to the Lord. Where does it say he built it? He builds the temple on Mount Moriah. Children, think back to the things that you've heard when mom and dad have taught you what the Bible teaches, the various Bible stories. Do you remember the name Moriah? Yeah, I can see some smiles on faces. I remember the name Moriah. That's where God told Abraham to take his son, his only son, and to offer him as a whole burnt offering. Remember that story? On Mount Moriah. You see the tapestry of redemptive history, how it comes together in redemptive history. We see this, how it comes together as history unfolds. The beauty of it. Yes, the place for Abraham offered his son, yes, the place where Melchizedek served. Do you see that? And now David selects that place where there was a fortification and builds his city. And David builds his palace there which represents his rule and his reign as God entered into covenant with him. And David longed to build a house for the Lord. Remember that? We read about this in Psalm 132. We also read about it in the narrative portions of Scripture. He longed to build a house for the Lord. Before that, he longed to have the Ark of the Covenant in the presence of the city, and he went out to get it. I'm not going to go through the whole story. You remember that as well, how he didn't do it right first time, cost Uzzah his life, but then how he danced before the Lord in humility. Why do you think he took off his robes? You ever wondered why? Why would he do this? His wife certainly wasn't pleased when he came dancing down the street in front of the palace in a linen ephod. This is beneath him. Of course, she's the queen. It's beneath him. Now, he was saying in that act, I'm not the king of Israel. Yahweh is the king of Israel. I am his servant. And then he said to the prophet, I'll not sleep. My eyelids will not close until I build the Lord a house. And the prophet says to him, this is good. And it was good. But God said to the prophet, no, you tell David, no, thank you. He's not going to build me a house. His son will build me a house because the covenant is not just with David. It's with David and his seed. Ultimately, it's with Jesus Christ. His son Solomon will build me a house, but I'm going to build him a house. I'm going to establish his seed forever on this throne if they keep my covenant. But we know the history. They didn't. We know about the collapse, which is what this book is about. We know about God's faithfulness. Even as he said to the prophets, he brought the remnant back to rebuild the temple, to reestablish the worship of God on Mount Zion. And also, he later brought Ezra to bring spiritual reforms. And then 13 years later, he brought Nehemiah to fortify the city. Everything's ready. Everything is ready, except for one thing. Where's David's son? They're waiting for David's son. And when David's son came over 400 years after Nehemiah fortified the city, he came riding in on the coat full of a donkey. And he didn't go up Mount Zion to displace Pilate, Caesar's surrogate in the city, but he went up Mount Moriah. He went to his father's house. They cleansed his father's house, sealing what would happen to him later in that week. on another small hill called Golgotha, where he would be crucified. What kind of king is this who's crucified? It's a king who has a purpose from his father to redeem a people for himself. Apart from that crucifixion, you would still be lost in your sin without hope. Without hope. This is not defeat. It's the victory of God. It's the glorification of the sun and the cross and in the resurrection and in the ascension at the right hand of the Father. It's important to understand the geography if we're to understand the biblical theology that underlies the Psalms and this particular Psalm. God chose Mount Zion. And the holy mount stands the city he founded. The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. He could have picked any location within the land that he chose, but he picked Mount Zion. We need to realize that when you see this language, God loves this more than he loves that. That this is what we call anthropomorphic language. How can the God who loves perfectly actually love anything more than something else when he loves everything perfectly? It's to help us understand his peculiar, that's a word we see in the King James Version, his unique and special love for Mount Zion. more than the dwelling places of Jacob. This is the place. This is the place where I will set my king. This is the place where I will be worshipped under the old covenant. This is my choice ground. God chose Zion as his dwelling place. I do want to take just a brief moment here to talk about He loves the gates of Zion more than the dwellings of Jacob. I think there's an important principle to be seen here in terms of the corporate nature of the church over against another covenantal unit that's called the Christian family. And one of the things that I love over the past 30 or 40 years, there's been a resurgence in understanding of God's blessing upon a man and his house and his seed. And we Presbyterians in particular love this. That God blesses not only a man who has faith, but also his seed. It's why, children, we put Christ's name upon you in baptism. because you belong to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't mean that you don't need to stand on your own two feet and profess faith in Christ. You will. And we long for that day and look forward to that day when it happens. But in this resurgence of interest in the covenant family, which is something that we should rejoice in, sometimes the pendulum swings too far. I remember, it's got to be 30 years ago or more, a friend of mine who's a retired PCA minister who worships at the church where my wife and my son are members in Chilhowee, Virginia. Now, when he's not preaching in some other church as a retired minister, he and I go way back. We're very dear friends. And he said to me one time, he said, I got a problem with my homeschooling families. Now, homeschooling is a good thing, don't get me wrong. And he believed the same thing. This was when homeschooling was just getting started, really, where we live up in Southwest Virginia. And I said, is that right? What's going on? He said, I can't get them to do anything except come to church on Sunday morning. They come to church on Sunday morning because they know they're supposed to come to church on Sunday morning. But everything else is about their family. Now, it's good to understand God's blessing upon the covenant family. And the church is made up of covenant families that he brings together. Sometimes there's only one person in that family, if it's someone who's single. But oftentimes there's a mother and a father and there's children that are in these families. We rejoice in these things. But you need to understand something in terms of theology. The fundamental covenant unit is not your family. The fundamental covenantal unit is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Your families, though in covenant with God and blessed by God and of great significance and importance, are temporary. There's no giving in marriage in heaven. There's marriage in heaven, but it's Christ and his bride, the church. The Church of Jesus Christ is that continuing, everlasting, covenantal institution. And in our minds, we should love the Church the way Christ loves the Church more than the dwellings of Jacob. Understand? The pendulum can swing too far. Now of course then the pendulum swings back the other way where everything's individualistic. To understand the nature of God's blessing upon a man and upon his house and upon his seed, we certainly don't want to go there. And of course there are churches that emphasize the church to the point where there's no time for the covenant unit, for the covenant family. We don't want to go there either. You know, we're Monday night, it's senior high youth group. Tuesday night, it's junior high youth group. Wednesday night, it's elementary school time. Thursday night, it's women's Bible study. Friday night, it's men's Bible study. And the families never have opportunity to be families. There are a lot of churches that fall into that stake. And yet at the same time, You must have a devotion for the church of Jesus Christ in the local assembly, especially on the Lord's Day. Morning and evening. You get to do it twice. You realize that you get to do it twice. And she's glorious. She's glorious because God says she's glorious. Look at what he says. Verse three, glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God. And if that's true of the old covenant and the typology of the old covenant, if it's true of Jerusalem in the old, how much more true is it in the new as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ? The church of Jesus Christ is glorious. This is true of the church universal, this is true of the church triumphant, even more so, it's true of the church universal here on earth, the church militant, but it's also true of the church and her local expressions under the new covenant. It's true of Zion. This Zion, you are glorious because Christ is here. You are glorious because God says so. And one of the things, mistakes we often make, especially in mission works, there's that initial enthusiasm and energy and excitement that's there. And then we see initial growth that takes place. And then sometimes things tend to level off in terms of growth, or maybe we lose a family here or there. How easy it is to become discouraged. Our temptation is just to look at the seats that are empty. Now we know if all the Renslers were here, there'd be a whole lot more of the seats full today than there are. And I go way back with the Renslers before any of you guys. But we tend to look at the empty seats instead of the seats that have people in them and see the glory. Because look at what Christ has done in the lives of His sheep. And every single one of you are His sheep. And He's gathering you here together. And yes, His intent is to plant a lampstand here that Zion is, and for that lampstand to grow in order to shine its light brighter. But she's glorious now. I often tell people there's more glory in this room I don't know how many people are here, what, 30 something, something like that right now. I haven't counted, I don't know how many. There's more glory in this room than in a thousand Passovers with a million people gathered in Jerusalem. Now that was a mega church for Passover. There's more glory in this room because Christ has come. He's been crucified. He's been raised. He's been exalted. And while there was outward glory under the old, no question about it, that glory has, as it were, by comparison to the glory now that Christ has come in the new covenant, has become dim. It was glorious in its own time, even as God declares, glorious things are spoken of you. Zion, city of our gods. There's more glory in this Zion than in that one. We need to understand that perspective. that will energize us to more faithfulness in our outreach and our evangelism and inviting people to come. You're hearing the Word of God preached faithfully and with great power and clarity, Lord's Day after Lord's Day. I know your pastor. I know his gifts. You can't find it. Well, probably if you get down to where Nick Thompson is. I feel like I'm third string, I'll tell you. You guys get A.J. every week and you get Nick Thompson tonight, I'm really third fiddle. When you think about the power of the preaching that you see. Get up around Maryville, Pastor Gansvoort can preach the lights out, there's no doubt about it. So can Pastor Thompson. And there are other faithful ministers, don't get me wrong. People need to be brought to sit under. I pray to you, the whole council of God, that you are blessed to have. Don't hide your light under a bushel. Zion is glorious because God says so. And he's here. Let's move to the second section. And you look at this short text, short sermon. Not necessarily. The universal scope of the church. Verse 4, Among those who know me, I mentioned Rahab in Babylon, Behold Philistia, and Tyre with Cush. This one was born there, they say. Now if you look at those places that are listed, most of these were archenemies of the people of God in the Old Covenant. Philistia, of course. How long did they battle with the Philistines? Tyrene Cush, not so much, but Rahab is another name for Egypt, where they were in bondage, and then Babylon is where they were taken away into captivity. These are the enemies of the people of God. When we say universal scope of this, this is anticipating the new covenant when he would bring his people from every tribe, every tongue, and every nation, even those that under the old covenant were enemies of the people of God. But I also want to, even though I think that's the proper interpretation of the text as we move forward, I'm going to give you another interpretation of the text that I don't think is the point of the text, but I think it's truth. If you look at the contrast between those who are born in Rahab, Babylon, Philistia, Tyre, and Cush, and then you see, and of Zion, it shall be said, this one and that one were born in her, for the Most High himself will establish her. The Lord records as he registers the people, this one was born there. A contrast between those that are born in the nations and then those that are born in Israel. There's a truth to this because there still remains a divide, an antithesis between church and world that was promised all the way back in Genesis 3.15. But enmity between your seed, he said to the serpent, and her seed, that is the seed of the woman. Between the world and the church, we see this throughout scripture. There is something special about being born in Zion. Again, I think you've got to be a Presbyterian to understand Psalm 87. I'm going to whisper that. I don't know whether you heard me or not. But I think that it's true. Oh, the blessing of being born in the covenant. Because many are not. I'd like to use an illustration. This was years ago. The first visit I had with what is now the church in Gastonia, North Carolina. We just had a special presbytery meeting there Friday night and yesterday. I came from there here. The Lord has blessed that church immensely through the years. But the first meeting was two families and me. And one of those families, I married he and his wife when she was a member of my church when they were young, years ago. And he and I had been praying for five years about if and when to try to plant a church in Gastonia. And we came to the conclusion, it's time to pull the trigger. So there were two families and me. I'll never forget going into that meeting, the other family came in to the room at a five-year-old little girl. She's about grown now. But she's about five years old at the time. And she just boldly said, I have a prayer request. I said, you do? That's good. You know, we'll hear your prayer request. We'll pray about it. And so she says, well, my prayer request is, my neighbor that is across the street, another five-year-old girl, she said, would you pray that she wouldn't be sad when her daddy comes to get her and she can't be with her mom? or that she won't be sad when her daddy brings her home and she can't be with her daddy. Would you pray that her mama would let her come to church with us? What a precious prayer request. We pray for that little girl. I want you to think about these two little girls. Two five-year-old girls. One is born in Zion, the other's not. One by God's providence was born in the covenant in a covenant family. Been taught the gospel probably from before she was even born. Burdened for her five-year-old neighbor who was not. And I say this to the children. Don't neglect this blessing that you have. whether it be by birth or by adoption. In this case, to be counted among the people of God from when you were very, very small is an extraordinary blessing not to be neglected. I'll never forget that contrast. But I don't think it's the thrust of this text. It is a truth. The thrust of this text, it's looking to the New Covenant. I like to use the illustration of a globe. Nobody uses globes anymore when they teach children because everything, you go on the computer and you pull up all this stuff and it's probably even more, it's probably even clearer on the screen. But it's great to have a globe in your hands. And to take that globe and say, under the old cover, before Jesus came, where were the people of God? Yes, there was the diaspora. There were Jews that were scattered. We know that. But where fundamentally were the people of God before Christ came? And you find this one little tiny place on the globe. Here. The rest are the nations, the Gentiles, that don't Have the Lord. Don't have the covenants. Don't have the oracles of God. The scriptures under the old covenant. Take that same globe. Ask the question. You can ask the children, where does God have his people now? Point anywhere that's inhabited. You see the greater glory under the new covenant. That includes us. How many of you are sons of Abraham according to the flesh? Raise your hands. Usually that's the number I get. No, and I'm not raising my hand because I'm a leader. You look like a bunch of goy to me. That's the Hebrew for Gentile. It sounds like goyim, nations goyim, goy. Our ancestors were pagans. Yet we who are far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ Jesus, through the preaching of the gospel. This psalm is anticipating what would happen in Christ's coming, his death, burial, his resurrection, his ascension, his pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon his church, so that even in that first generation, those that opposed the apostles said, these are the men who have turned the world upside down. That's the great commission that's been given to the church and never revoked. But it's still a blessing to be born in Zion. And I don't mean Zion over there, that mountain. I mean in the church of Jesus Christ under the new covenant and have Christ's name placed on you when you're small. And then we read, as we come to the end, an exaltation of praise. Of course, we're not at all surprised by that. And the Psalms, the Psalms are full of songs of praise. I'm going to do something very unorthodox. I'm going to take this text out of its context. I've sort of already done that once, but I'm going to do it again. But I'm going to put it back. I promise to put it back. Okay. We'll see it in its context. But if you hadn't heard this sermon, that's hard to do in the middle of it, to say, okay, I've got to ignore everything that I've just heard. But if you had not heard this sermon, if somebody just read you this verse in isolation, singers and dancers alike say, all my springs are in you. Children, those who study grammar will know this probably better than the adults. But we know what a pronoun is. A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun. Is that correct? I'm making sure. Miss Ross taught me this in the fifth grade, but that's been almost 60 years ago. A pronoun is a word that takes place of a noun. How do you know what noun it replaces? That's called the antecedent. Is that right? The antecedent? You go back to find what is the antecedent. Okay, if you take this out of context and you just ask the question. Singers and dancers alike say, all my springs are in you. What would you assume to be the antecedent of you? If you take it out of context. That is that all of my refreshment, all of my joy, all of my nourishment is found in you, is the cry of the people of God. What would you expect to be the antecedent of you? You would expect it to be the answer that children give at Bible school to every question. God, isn't that the answer to, you're pretty safe at least 50% of the time if you're asked a question, if you answer it by saying God or Jesus? That's the way it was when I grew up. You would expect He would be God. And that would be true. Is it not? Is it true that all of our springs, all of the refreshment, all of our nourishment is found in Him? This would be a fitting song of praise to sing to God. But put it back in its context. What is the antecedent of you? It's Mount Zion, the city of our God. It's a song of praise and the object of adoration is the city of God under the old covenant. Under the new covenant, it's the church of Jesus Christ. The church of Jesus Christ is your lifeblood. Do you understand how important it is? Your connection to the church of Jesus Christ, to its fellowship, to its worship, to its mission. So you could say all of my springs are in you. So I sing and I dance. Now we're Presbyterians, we have to be a little careful about this dancing thing. You see how God sees the church? You see how we must see the church, yes, even Zion, this Zion. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the beauty of it when we see it within the context of the whole of scripture. We thank you for Jesus who died to redeem a people for himself. We thank you for the church. Your bride, Lord Jesus. We thank you for Our portion of the church, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, with all of our sins and weaknesses, and our regional church, the Presbyterian of the Southeast, again, with all of our sins and our weaknesses, and Zion, this local congregation, with all of our sins and our weaknesses, and yet you declare your church to be glorious. Father, forgive us when we don't see her as you see her. and stir our hearts to greater fidelity and commitment to your people, to your work, to our worship, to our fellowship, to our mission. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let's turn And our hymnal is then turned to a hymn that was inspired by this psalm. Psalm 403, Glorious things are spoken of thee. Psalm 403. Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God. He whose word cannot be broken formed thee for his own abode. On the rock of ages founded, What can shake thy sure repose? Where salvation's walls surround it, Thou mayst fall at all thy foes. See the streams of living waters springing from eternal love. Well supply thy sons and daughters and all fear of what we were. Such a river ever flows their thirst to swage. Grace which, like the Lord the giver, never fails from age to age. Round each habitation hovering, See the cloud and fire appear, Pure of glory and a covering, Showing that the Lord is near. Thus deriving from their manner, light by night and shade by day, safe they feed upon the manna which he gives them when they pray. Savior of Zion's city, I through grace a member am. Let the world deride or pity, I will glory in thy name. Fading is the whirling splash, All his boasted pomp and show, Solid joys and lasting treasure, None but Zion's children know. Amen. Receive the benediction and blessing. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen. Probably not because I got others I have to visit