Psalm 133 is our text today. Excuse me, 132. We'll get the right psalm here. Picking up on even the hymns we were just singing, Isaac Watts and James Alexander, both had very biblically informed imagination and expressed many of the truths that we're going to be learning about in this psalm of ascents. ascending to God or participating in the fulfillment of God's promises. This is what this psalm shows us today, how to participate in the fulfillment of God's promises. And so with this 13th now song of ascent, we've reached to the final three of these songs of ascents that the pilgrims would sing on their way to Jerusalem. The pilgrims, began singing on their journey from far away, the tents of Kedar in Psalm 120. They lifted up their eyes to the hills and looked far away to them in Psalm 121. But now they sing the song of Zion as they come to the completion of their pilgrimage. You're gonna see in Psalm 132, 133, and 134, the pictures increasingly are about being at Jerusalem, being there in the presence of God with the brothers. So now they take their place as participants in the great sweep of God's plan of redemption. They in effect taste the joys of being in God's dwelling place with his people. This is an interesting song, a psalm in the psalm of a sense, because for one thing, it's longer than most of the psalms of a sense. And in contrast to, say, the last two that we've just looked at here, it is not at all focused on personal experience per se. It does connect our personal experience as pilgrims, but it connects it to the great work of redemption across time and space, across the great sweep of all that God is doing throughout history. And I really believe this is a crucial perspective that we need as pilgrims We need it in our day, perhaps more than even some other days with our individualistic perspective on our religion. So let's consider this together now. Let's read the psalm. Remember, O Lord, in David's favor all the hardships he endured, how he swore to the Lord and vowed to the mighty one of Jacob, I will not enter my house or get into my bed. I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the mighty one of Jacob. Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah. We found it in the fields of Yar. Let us go to his dwelling place. Let us worship at his footstool. Arise, O Lord, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. Let your priests be clothed with righteousness and your saints shout for joy. For the sake of your servant David, do not turn away the face of your anointed one. The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back. One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on your throne. For the Lord has chosen Zion. He has desired it for his dwelling place. This is my resting place forever. Here I will dwell for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provisions. I will satisfy her poor with bread. Her priests I will clothe with salvation and her saints will shout for joy. There I will make a horn to sprout for David. I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but on him his crown will shine. Pardon me. We enter into the first stanza of this psalm with prayer. It's really the first stanza is a prayer. You'll see it's framed in prayer in verse 1 and verse 10. Remember, O Lord, in David's favor all the hardships he endured. And it comes back to that in verse 10. For the sake of your servant David, do not turn away the face of your anointed one. This is God's people together as pilgrims calling upon the name of the Lord, calling Him first of all, in verses 1 through 5, to remember. Remember. Now, interestingly enough, it says here, remember, O Lord, in David's favor, for David's sake. Pardon me. This is about David. Now, I have to admit, in part to my own chagrin, perhaps, that I don't think I've ever prayed, Lord, remember in David's favor. I don't think I've ever started a prayer that way, as I was contemplating that this week. But I think we should. I think this is a very appropriate and biblical kind of prayer to pray because I think this prayer reveals a profound understanding of the way our God works. By praying it ourselves, we are inducted into the wisdom of the ages, a little knowledge of our place in the world and how we truly relate to God. Part of that wisdom, the wisdom of the ages, is to know that redemption has a history. Redemption has a history. I think one of our contemporary conceits is to think that our unfettered will creates reality in its worst cases. And even when it comes to our relationship with God, people want to be, as the phrase is nowadays, spiritual but not religious. In other words, I feel some kind of a need for God in my life. but I don't want to be tethered to any actual religion with actual tradition or actual authority or actual people. But folks, that's folly. That's not actually the way God's plan of redemption works in this world. You aren't just an isolated individual on your way to heaven, however you conceive of that. In fact, the very path you are walking has been formed by others walking in the same way. You might say God's promises mark out the path and then God uses the faithfulness of his people to pave that path. Others have labored and we have entered into their labors. And I think if you don't understand the true history of God's work of redemption, you're not going to understand who you are and how you really relate to God, what your life as a pilgrim is really like. That's why even with Bible-believing Christians today, sometimes we sense this problem. Evangelicalism, as it's often called, has all the cohesion of a pile of sand because we don't understand how we're interconnected. To pray, Lord, remember on David's behalf, and think that means something for us today, is automatically to conceive of this whole thing God is doing as an interconnected seamless garment, something God is accomplishing down through the ages that we get to be a part of. So we know, first of all, if we're gonna have this wisdom to pray like this prayer is teaching us, we have to remember that redemption has a history. And then we need to learn that that history, or think of that history, I should say, in God's terms. the history that has transpired, we have to learn to see it in God's terms. Why pray, O Lord, remember in David's behalf? Why pray that? Why not pray, O Lord, remember in George Washington's behalf? Or, O Lord, remember in Winston Churchill's behalf? I mean, weren't those great men who were leaders at decisive moments in human history and people admire them and look up to them and even say how much our lives are influenced to this day by those men? Well, yes, that's true, but there's a difference here, isn't there? An important difference. Yes, in God's general providence of his world, these men were great leaders, but they were not intrinsic to God's plan of redemption. As we're going to see when we get to the second part of this psalm, the Lord made David an anchor point in the outworking of his plan of redemption. And that's what these people understand when they pray this prayer. Just by the fact they're praying this way, they're showing they understand a little bit of how God's plan works out here, right? And I would ask you today, do your prayers reflect what God says is important in his plan of redemption as that works out in life? It's interesting to me sometimes what matters to us when we pray, the things that weigh upon us and that we beg God for. Often it might relate to things like health or wellbeing in that kind of a way. But in the grand scheme of things, do we really call upon God just because I need better health? What's the whole point here in God's great plan of redemption? I think we should learn to think that way. The Psalms help us to do that. They help us to see everything we're experiencing, everything that's working out in our lives now, even in terms of the history of God, the outworking of God's salvation, and we need to learn to see that. You see, the whole point of earthly history is not ultimately about earthly kingdoms, is it? Even greater influential kingdoms. It's about God and his dwelling with men. We see in this psalm that David understood something of that true plotline of history. David himself, as this song of a sense, thinks back on David and asks the Lord to remember him. which by the way, again, is not just to think about him, but to act on the basis of that. Remember, O Lord, in David's favor, all the hardships he endured, how he swore to the Lord and vowed to the mighty one of Jacob, I will not enter my house or get into my bed. I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the mighty one of Jacob. What's going on here? What we're seeing, as this Psalm looks back in history, is that David understood something about what really matters in life, about how the outworking of God's plan works and what matters about it. He was committing himself to God's dwelling place with man. In fact, the Psalm here describes it as suffering afflictions, hardships, David, in a sense, afflicted himself in order to provide for building the temple of the Lord. He committed himself to that. Now that's a contrast with most of the kings and the rulers of this world, isn't it? The kings and the rulers of this world are not generally known for sacrificing their own power and prestige, for surrendering their own luxury in order to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. That's not typically why men go into politics and try to gain earthly power. But that is what David did. That's what the Psalm is saying. In fact, it says that he vowed, he swore an oath. Now, we don't actually have a record of that earlier in the scriptures, of David actually making an oath, though we see him doing these very things. God revealed to David that he would not personally build the temple. But he did, David then did commit himself to amass a wealth of materials so that Solomon, his son, could do so. And even in that, by the way, we see David's commitment to the Lord's program, to what mattered most, to dwelling in God's presence is what mattered to him, having God's presence among his people. If God said to you, hey, I want you to devote yourself to something that you're never even gonna see the benefit of, you're gonna die, and you won't get the benefit of this. Would you still labor and strive and afflict yourself to accomplish that? You see David's faith here. You see, he saw what mattered most about my life. Why has God made me a king? Why has God put me in this position? It's ultimately for his glory, to accomplish his mission. And that's what David sets himself to do here, which is why the psalm then asks the Lord to remember in David's behalf. Lord, remember David. In other words, remember Lord, so as to bring his faithfulness to fruition even now. This psalm was prayed later on, down through the centuries. We know that Solomon quoted from verses eight through 10 from this psalm at the dedication of the temple. He prayed what was written here. And so on down through the centuries as the pilgrims would come to Jerusalem, and even on down through the centuries after Jesus Christ has come, God's people pray this. And you know what we're praying? Even to this day, like right now, we are praying, Lord, bring what David did to fruitfulness today. Let there be ongoing effects, benefits coming from what David did back then. That's an amazing prayer request, but that's what pilgrims pray, because pilgrims see themselves in light of the great sweep of God's plan of redemption. So verses one through five talk about remembering, and then in verses six and seven, we see a rehearsal. Precisely because God's people find their place in the great plan of redemption that God is working out through David, they rehearse the great story of David finding the ark and bringing it to his newly conquered capital city, Jerusalem. That's what they do in verses six and seven. They enter into the story, but the pilgrims take this upon their lips. Behold, we heard of it. What's it? Well, you haven't heard yet. It's coming later. It's the ark. In Ephrathah, we found it in the fields of Yar. And then they say together, let us go to his dwelling place. We're gonna find the ark and we're gonna take it to his dwelling place. Let us worship at his footstool. What they're doing is rehearsing for us the story that's found in 2 Samuel 6. Many of you have read this story. You know what had happened to the ark of the covenant, the ark that instantiated God's presence amongst His people, the ark that was designed to be in that holy place beyond the curtain in the tabernacle, first of all, before the temple was built, where God would meet with man. The top of it was the mercy seat where the high priest would sprinkle the blood on the day of atonement. Over it were the cherubim, guarding the very presence of God, the Shekinah glory. The ark was the place where God would meet with man. But in the course of Israel's history, to even the time of the judges, and then even into the time of Saul, the Ark had an unusual amount of history. At one point, it's even captured by the Philistines. Israelites took it out to battle and it was captured. The Philistines took it, knew the story of how they put it in their temple, and Dagon fell on his face before it and so forth. Eventually Israel gets it back, but it never makes it back to the place of God's dwelling. It's sort of just lost out there, waiting, waiting. When is this going to be fulfilled? And so as David becomes king, and David establishes his might, his rule, his reign, by conquering Jerusalem, the stronghold of Jerusalem, and making that his capital city, this hill of Zion, now he says, it's time. We need to bring the ark where it belongs. We need God to be here with his people. And so he goes out to do that now. Even in his initial enthusiasm for doing that, David didn't do it right. The first time they got the ark, they put it on a cart, right? Drawn by oxen. Were they supposed to do that according to the law? No, they weren't. Ended up suffering even the death of Uzziah because of that. When the oxen stumbled and he touched the ark to steady it, he was struck dead. That was something sacred. You don't mess with God's presence here. David obviously repented of that, but it didn't dissuade him because what he was after was right and good. And so finally they come back after three months, they come back and they pick up the ark the way God intended with the priests carrying it in procession. And they have a wonderful procession, pardon me, to Jerusalem to bring the ark where it belongs. In fact, that's the story where you have David dancing before the Lord with all of his might. This is pure joy. Life is fulfilled because God is with us as his people. That was David's faith. That was his desire. And so as these pilgrims sing this psalm, you know what they're doing is they're entering back into that story. They're taking the words on their own lips first person, right? We heard of the ark. Where is it? Right? We're gonna go find it. Okay, we found it. Now we know where it is. What are we gonna do with it? Let us go to his dwelling place. Let us worship at his footstool. We want to be with our God. So God's people take it in procession. And so as they do that, they rehearse God's ascending to his dwelling place. Some have even thought that this might have been used at ritual reenactments of bringing the ark to Jerusalem, although of course we don't know that. But I think what's important for us today is to remember that by rehearsing this together, the pilgrims are appropriating to themselves the position of those who seek the Lord to worship Him. They're putting themselves in that position in the story. They're owning their heritage and they're making it their own. And that's something every generation has to do. Every generation must own the Lord and make Him their own. You see, it's not enough to acknowledge that at some point in the past, a historical event took place. It wouldn't have been enough for Israel, even these pilgrims here to say, well, yeah, we know that this actually did happen. We believe that there was a historical event and that the Ark was found and then it went up to Jerusalem and okay. But what of it? What difference does that make? You see the difference between a This is the difference between a merely mental acknowledgement of something and faith or trust. Many people can mentally acknowledge many of the great works of the Lord, even in his plan of redemption, but what of it? Do you commit your life to that? Do you depend upon that entirely for your life, your hope? Even when it comes to Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, We talked about this a couple weeks ago, and this is why we emphasize, it's not enough to acknowledge just the fact, the historical fact that Jesus died on the cross, or even that he rose from the dead. The point is, what of it? What are you gonna do about it? What does that mean for your life? Are you gonna surrender yourself, or are you gonna just keep that as, that's a historical fact that happened back then, that really has no relevance to me right now. No, this Psalm won't let the pilgrims do that, right? It's you're part of the story here. You're part of the picture. Your life depends upon that. What are you going to do about God's truth? And so the pilgrims then together, because they do trust the Lord and they do delight to worship Him like all true believers do, they take to themselves the ancient words, arise, O Lord. and they call upon the Lord to achieve his triumphant rest. So this stanza closes in verses eight through 10 with a rise to claim your rest, Lord. Pardon me. This is what Moses, excuse me, Moses used to pray during Israel's wilderness wanderings. That's where these words come from. Numbers records for us, and the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them three days journey to seek out a resting place for them. And the cloud of the Lord was over them by day whenever they set out from camp. And whenever the ark set out, Moses said, arise, O Lord, and let your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate you flee before you. And when it rested, he said, return, O Lord, to the 10,000 thousands of Israel. That's Numbers 10, 33 through 36. You see, when the people pray this, they're saying, this is our God who brought us out of Egypt. He has gone before us in a triumphal procession, defeating his enemies by leading his people to the promised land. And now he's coming to dwell with us here. And this will be his capital. This will be his place. His kingdom will be established and we will delight in him. Pardon me. What they're looking for was the fulfillment of what that foreshadowed. They saw in the wilderness wandering, in the ark moving before them, they saw God accomplishing His salvation on behalf of His people. But it was a foreshadowing. It wasn't the full kingdom. And what they were desiring was, in effect, your kingdom come. That's what they were praying here. When they say, arise, O Lord, and enter into your rest, they're praying, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We want the fullness of your kingdom to be a reality in our lives. God, having scattered all of his enemies, draws his people now to righteous and joyful life in his presence under his anointed king. And that's what they pray. Let your priests be clothed with righteousness and let your saints shout for joy for the sake of your servant, David. Do not turn away the face of your anointed one. So pilgrim, as you sing this psalm today, you are looking for the same thing, the same thing that the pilgrims of old were looking for. And that is exactly why you turn to God's covenant with David, which is what the next stanza of this Psalm talks about in verses 11 through 18. We have here promise. The first stanza is prayer. And now it focuses on promise. God's covenant with David. Oh Lord, remember in David's behalf. Will God remember? The Lord will remember, David. You see, what God has committed himself to in the past is our confidence for the future. When God has made a promise, when God has committed Himself to something, He will fulfill it. He will never turn back from that. And that is exactly what this psalm rises in its crescendo to rejoice in. So the first stanza looks back on an oath that David swore, but now this stanza looks to the future based on an oath that God Himself swore. And by the way, this in itself is instructive. David's oath would be fruitless if it were not for the deeper working of God's oath. Yes, David did commit himself, even sacrifice and afflict himself to accomplish God's mission. But what would that be if God himself was not working in and through all that to accomplish his mission? And by the way, this, again, clarifies even what we're praying when we pray, Lord, remember on David's behalf. We don't pray, Lord, remember on David's behalf, because David has some kind of a treasury of merit that we can draw on, that he's accomplished all these extra good things beyond what most of us, and we can get some of that. So Lord, remember David, and then he'll kind of help us out. No, we pray, Lord, remember David, because the Lord made a covenant with David. The Lord has committed himself to this plan of action. And so we can appeal to that. In verses 11 and 12, it talks about David's sons. The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back. One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on your throne. Now it's interesting in this very commitment of the Lord, there is a condition built into it. If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on your throne. As we look down through human history, it wasn't too many generations. before David's sons didn't keep this covenant, didn't stay faithful to the Lord their God. Oh, there were periodic revivals, but at the end of the day, they failed in so many ways. Here's where the beauty of God's commitment shines. God himself undertakes to bring this covenant to fruition by bringing about a son of David that does not fail to keep the covenant conditions. that fulfills everything that God has assigned and that God fulfills all of His promises with. In fact, there's even a hint of this, pardon me, when we see this in verse 11, it says, the Lord swore to David a sure oath, or He swore to David truth. We could even translate it that way. This is reality. This is what God has sworn. And He will not turn back from this. At the end of the day, this covenant is going to be fulfilled because God himself will never stop fulfilling this covenant, no matter what people do. He's also going to accomplish this in a way that is forever. Their sons forever shall sit on your throne. Already we're reaching beyond what merely human achievement could ever do. God is going to send a son of David who would completely fulfill everything he has commanded and would forever reign. How does God keep this promise? Through Jesus Christ, of course, the son of David, the one who brings all of God's promises to their fulfillment, who is yea and amen. All of God's promises in him are yes and amen, right? He is the one specifically who is of the fruit of David's womb. In fact, as it's described here, I guess I need to explain that a little bit. In verse 11, it's translated here in the ESV of one of the sons of your body. And this is a little bit, oh, I don't know if it's a pet peeve. I can't really be very critical because it's a very difficult job to be a translator and I'm not up to that task. But sometimes translators in our English versions change metaphors. in order to, because it doesn't seem maybe to make sense in our language or things like that. Unfortunately, our English translators changed the metaphor here. There's no word for body there. It's actually the word for a womb, like of the fruit of your womb, he says to David. Now, why does that not seem to make initial sense to us? Well, David's a man, he doesn't have a womb, right? How is he going to have a son from his womb? And yet, there's a lot we can talk about here. And yet, I think there is even a foreshadowing of what God is going to bring about here through the virgin birth. There's going to be a son of David born without the man, with the woman. and he's going to fulfill all of God's promises. I will set him on your throne, God promises this, right? He keeps his promise by sending his own son, and this king reigns forever. And then the Psalm goes to rejoice in what the Lord is going to do for David's city, his oath, his covenant regarding David's son, but even David's city, the city of Zion, The Lord has set his love upon Zion here. Here's a covenant relationship you might say of love, very much like a wedding covenant. In fact, I can't help read this, but think of this as a profession of love. For the Lord has chosen Zion. He has desired, and here again, we could translate this, her. He has desired her for his dwelling place. This is my resting place forever. Here I will dwell for I have desired her. I will abundantly bless her provisions. I will satisfy her poor with bread. Her priests I will clothe with salvation and her saints will shout for joy. The Lord is picturing Zion like his bride, right? I desire her. I delight in her. I look upon her with love and I want to dwell with her. Right? This is the Lord's commitment, what he will do because of his own good pleasure, not because Zion is great, because this is how he will accomplish his saving purposes. This is my resting place forever. God, fulfilling that cry, arise, O Lord, and come to your resting place. And when the people appeal to God to come to his resting place, what they mean is, as the echoes were all the way back from creation account, and the Lord resting at the finish of his works, God is going to finish all of his work of salvation. God is going to conquer all of his enemies, and then he is going to rest on his throne, right? In other words, it's a picture of complete and total fulfillment. The work is done. He has accomplished it. Come to your rest. And God says, this will be my resting place forever. Again, looking far beyond any mere human city, but to a city that God himself will build and dwell in, a new Jerusalem. I will dwell here forever. This will be God dwelling with his people. Pardon me. This is God's place where it's almost as if God is giving himself an address. and saying, here's where you will find me, right? Come here. He didn't have to do that for himself, but he does that for us because we are people, we need that. This is his place, the Zion, the temple in it. In fact, even thinking about his place, pardon me, as he describes it here, my dwelling place, In Psalm 24, verse three, it asks, who shall ascend to the hill of the Lord and who shall stand in his holy place? Psalm 26, eight replies this, oh Lord, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells. There's a reference to the temple here. This is where God's people want to be because this is where God meets with man. He will provide them full salvation and joy. You see how he answers even their prayer request by saying, her priests I will clothe with salvation. Her saints will shout for joy, a direct answer to their prayer. And then he concludes, there I will make a horn to sprout for David. Strength here, reigning strength. I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. the light shining out, light to the Gentiles, to the uttermost parts of the earth. His enemies I will clothe with shame. They will be defeated before him, but on him, his crown will literally blossom. It will flourish. It will shine out. His reign will be established. God will provide full salvation and joy for his people. Folks, this is what pilgrims pray. True pilgrims who believe the Lord, who long for Him, look back in all the vast sweep of His plan of redemption, and they played with Him on the basis of that. They look to His promises, and they see that working out in their lives. That's how true pilgrims define the meaning of their lives, not through some secularized history, but through the history of God's works because that's what the world is. It's the history of God establishing his kingdom where he will dwell with men. And until you understand that, you don't understand the world and you don't even understand your own life. I would submit to you don't even understand your own pilgrimage if you don't understand that. What are you here for? Why do you long for something greater? Because God has designed you for him in his kingdom. And that's what everything that's happening in this world is about. The good news is that today in the church, we are participating in this reality. This is not just something far off in dreamland. We are participating in this in the spirit even now because of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection. The Bible says we, the body of Christ, are his temple. This is not mere metaphor. This is the reality. And we need to learn to think of ourselves as God's temple. We are living stones in this temple. The Bible also calls us today here a royal priesthood. And so it's not at all wrong for us to say, when we cry out, let your priests be clothed with righteousness, let your priests be clothed with salvation, that we're talking about us. We want God's people, his priests who mediate his presence to the world, to be clothed with God's righteousness, accomplishing God's right work. We want us to be clothed with God's salvation, accomplishing His mission of salvation to the ends of the earth, which is why the church has no temporal or geographical boundaries. We are clothed with salvation because we are clothed with Christ. Galatians 3.27 says, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There's your salvation. There's your righteousness. This is what you're living in. God has made this a reality in your life. What these saints making their way up to the city of Jerusalem are praying for is something you are experiencing today if you're in Christ. And so we shout for joy in the Lord. Why do we get together and sing the hill of Zion yields a thousand sacred sweets before we reach the heavenly fields and walk the golden streets? Because God is fulfilling this prayer. In other words, God is remembering David. God is remembering a covenant that he made thousands of years ago, and it is working out for your benefit and your blessing today. You see that? Pardon me. Pilgrims who sing this prayer and this promise, who give themselves to enter into the great history of redemption in Christ, are people who look for Christ to be exalted as King over all, On him his crown will shine. Therefore, they love his body, his bride, the church. This is a Psalm that challenges you very deeply to see what's going on in the church today. By being his church, we are assembling in the vestibule of the new Jerusalem. You realize that's what's going on? By being his church, We are on the threshold. We've been brought within the fold. We are ready to enter into the fullness of God's presence. And we are enjoying the foretaste of that right now by the Spirit, by faith. Participating in the fulfillment of God's promises is no individualistic thing. It's no self-centered salvation. It's the salvation of a people. It's the erection of a temple. It's the building of a city. It's God dwelling with men. Folks, if you see this, if this Psalm can be yours today, I trust it will challenge you deeply to see and to interpret your whole life. And even this church, in light of God's promises to David, Why is there High Country Baptist Church here today? Why are people assembling in the name of the Lord right here in this place in earth's history today in 2022? We can say in part, it's because God made a promise to David. We can even say building on that, that as that worked out in David's life, it's because David committed himself and sacrificed to build a temple for the Lord. And we are the beneficiaries of that. It's because the great son of David then came as the great temple, right? Tear down this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up. And he did. And he's building his temple. And you are part of it. You see the glory? You see how that changes your whole perspective in life? Folks, don't let the news anchors tell you what your life means right now. Don't read the newspaper to figure out, oh, what's important in my life? What do I need to do? Don't let the corporations and the businesses dictate to you, this is what life is about. And so therefore this is what you need to do. Don't let educational institutions structure your life. Don't let human governments tell you, oh, this is what the kingdom is really like. This is what the kingdom that will fulfill your souls. No, as believers, we see something, as pilgrims, we see something totally different. We see something much bigger, much deeper. We see God's promises to David being enacted now in the church. And we look forward to the fulfillment of that in the new Jerusalem. Do you live that way today? I would simply challenge you and urge you today to sing this Psalm of ascents and take your place among those who worship at our King's footstool. If you believe this today, would you confess your faith that Jesus is Lord together as a congregation? Jesus is Lord.