Turn with me now in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 7. In a moment we'll turn to our psalm of the month, Psalm 87. We're taking a break from our usual sermon series in Genesis to look at the psalm of the month this morning, Psalm 87. But to understand what is happening in that psalm, we'll look first at Revelation chapter 7. Revelation chapter 7. I'll read the whole chapter here. The 17 verses. Revelation chapter 7. Hear now the word of the Lord. After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind might blow on the earth or sea or against any tree. Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels that had been given power to harm earth and sea, saying, Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the saints of our God on their foreheads. And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel. 12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed. 12,000 from the tribe of Reuben. 12,000 from the tribe of Gad. 12,000 from the tribe of Asher. 12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali. 12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh. 12,000 from the tribe of Simeon. 12,000 from the tribe of Levi. 12,000 from the tribe of Issachar. 12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000 from the tribe of Joseph, 12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed. After this, I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell down on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, saying, Amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen. Then one of the elders addressed me saying, Who are these clothed in white robes? And from where have they come? I said to him, Sir, you know, And he said to me, these are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple. And he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more. neither thirst any more. The sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." Amen. The Apostle John is on the island of Patmos in the Spirit on the Sabbath day and he looks up into the heavens and he sees this incredible vision and he records it as this poignant play on words. You see, the vision in the previous chapters, 4, 5, and 6, is that there is a scroll with seven seals. And no one in heaven and earth is found worthy to unlock those seals and to release the judgment of God on the earth. until the Lamb who was slain, but now lives forevermore, comes to the throne of His Father, and that Lamb seizes from the throne that scroll of judgment, and He breaks those seven seals, and He releases the judgments of the Lord on the earth. And now in this vision, in chapter seven, it says that there were four more angels after those first seven angels. And these four are at the four corners of the world and they're holding back the wind, the spirit of God, the judgment of God, and they cry out with a loud voice, don't carry out any of those judgments until the church is sealed in full. Those seals of judgment that have been unlocked by the resurrected king, he restrains them. so that he can protect and seal his church. Hey, until I'm done baptizing, the judgment will wait. With this in mind, turn back to Psalm 87. Our Psalm of the month is from Psalm 87, in which the sons of Korah are celebrating this morning the church We have in this little psalm, these short seven verses. We'll see if I can create a sermon that matches a short sermon. This short little psalm with its seven verses focuses on the beauty of the city of God, the church of God, the people of God as they dwell with Him in grace and in glory. So let's look together. Psalm 87. Here again, the word of the Lord. A psalm of the sons of Korah. A psalm. 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. Salaam. 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 peoples. This one was born there, Salah. Singers and dancers alike say, all my springs are in you. Amen and amen. As I've told you many times when I was a little boy, I loved the fields and forests of my farm. I knew every tree. I knew every trickle of water through the woods. I named the hills and the meadows and the fields. I invented stories about their significance. I could tell you to this day which battles were fought where on that farm, not in history, in my imagination. I knew every rock and turn of the road. I knew every rut and path along the way. It was a place I loved, a place I was happy. It was my favorite place. Do you have a place like that? Maybe a house along a beach, maybe a cabin in the woods, maybe a bustling city or a small town. But you have a place from your childhood, from your adult life, where you look on it and you say, that is my favorite place. There I am happy. There the world makes sense. Have you ever considered that God Almighty who made heaven and earth has a favorite place? Have you ever considered that you are that place? God loves his church. It's a simple truth. It's a familiar truth. But it's a truth that should radically reshape our doctrine of the church. That should radically reshape our relationship to the church. How do we feel about church? What do we think about this thing that we do and who we are and how our life is ordered? Psalm 87 gives us this good news. Psalm 87 gives us this gospel. God loves His church. And so we should celebrate being it. We should celebrate the fact that we are the church and He loves us. Well, let's look at Psalm 87 together. Notice in the subtitle it is a psalm of the sons of Korah, but it is also a psalm. The sons of Korah have written for us many psalms. This is one of this second collection that appears at the end of this book. Psalms 84, 85, 87, 88. These Psalms of the sons of Korah are dwelling on the corporate nature of the church, the collective nature of the church. And we have in this particular Psalm, this particular song, something that looks at the church as a doctrine. In fact, in verses one through three, we'll be looking at three truths about the church, three things you and I should believe about our church. But then in verses four through seven, we'll be looking at three ways those beliefs should change our behavior. Three things the church should be doing. But this psalm is also a psalm. It's not just a text or a pretext for sound doctrine, for good ecclesiology. I want to use that word, that's that big word that means what you believe about the church, ecclesiology. It's the truths about the church, the things you and I believe about the church. But this psalm is not merely a pretext for our ecclesiology. It is something the church itself sings about the church. that we as the servants of Jesus, as the choir who sings with Jesus, we the sons of Korah, those rebellious fathers, take up this song in the assembly, that we might know who we are, and that by singing together we might teach one another, as Paul said in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5. So what should we learn today as we sing something like Psalm 87? What is our theology of the church? First, in verse 1, on the holy mount stands the city he founded. Our first principle, our first element of our doctrine of the church is that it's not our church, it's God's. This church was not founded by Reformed Presbyterians. This church was founded by God. It's his, he planted it here. It is his city, verse three, O city of God. It belongs to God, it comes from God, it rises and it falls with God. But what is more, God is the establisher, the founder of that city, has planted it on a holy mound. This city, this society, this community, this gathering of persons which God himself has gathered has as its foundation a holy mountain, a holy hill. The sons of Korah are probably singing about Jerusalem and the idea that it is founded on the holiness of the mountains that are there. First, there is the Mount of Moriah that is there. You know, that mountain on which the ram was sacrificed so that Abraham's son Isaac could live. But there was also there that temple mount on which Solomon built his temple, where untold thousands of rams were slaughtered so that the Israelites' sin could be atoned for. But of course, greatest of all is the fact that this city, This society of humans, this community which God has established is founded on that holy mount, the Mount of Calvary. You see, we do not look to a ram in the thicket as the foundation of our church. And we do not look to a sacrificial system under Moses as the foundation of our church. We look to the cross of Jesus Christ. We're a church because we have a gospel. We're a church because we have a Jesus who died for us. My friends, this is why we gather together. Jesus died for us. This is why we're a church in the first place. The foundation of this city is the gospel. In the words of Martin Luther, this is the article on which the church stands and falls. If we have another reason, we are not a church. This is the Reformation's first test of a true church. We have the gospel. rightly and purely preached. If it is not the gospel, if it is not Christ crucified for sinners, we haven't a church. We have something else, some civic organization, some humanitarian society, our theology. Who are we? We're gospel believers. We're gospel preachers. were a city built on the gospel, the holy mount of Christ's crucifixion. But secondly, what do we believe about the church? That the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Again, the sons of Korah are thinking specifically and geographically. You see, the Lord loves the tribes of Israel. All of you who have done a Bible reading through the year know this. Because you have drugged yourself through genealogy after genealogy, laden with all those unpronounceable Hebrew names. And you have drugged yourself through all those chapters that have nothing in them but obscure Hebrew names and numbers. Counts of people that mean nothing to us, because we don't know who they are. But it's not about us, is it? Those names and those numbers mean everything to God. He loves the tribes of Israel. He loves the tribes of Israel so much, he takes a census of them twice. And you have to read it twice when you do your Bible reading. Because he loves the tribes of Israel. He loves the tribes of Israel and their inheritance. He defeated all their enemies in Canaan. He drove out all their foes and gave them those villages and those vineyards. He gave them those wonderful, beautiful places to inhabit. And there they prospered and did well. He loves the land. He loves his people and he loves his people in the land. But as much as he loves all that, He loves the gates of Zion more. He loves the swinging doors and all who come through it. He loves the house. the people, the family, who gather as his own precious people on the foundation of the gospel, on the truth of Christ crucified for sinners. We come with that one article in common. As we learned this morning in the adult Bible class, some might be Yankees fans and some might be Red Sox fans, but that is not what separates us in heaven. or in the church. We have one article. It is Christ crucified for sinners. And on that basis, we can come together. On that basis, we can be united in the gates of Zion. All the tribes of Jacob, they're dwelling together in the love of the Lord. Here's the good news. God loves your home. God loves your family. He loves your private devotions. He loves you reading your Bible and praying every day. He loves family worship. He loves you and your children and your spouse getting together and reading and praying and singing every day. He loves that. He loves this more. He loves the gates of Zion more. He loves the gathering of the tribes in Jerusalem more. This is what we believe about the church, that this is the place where the love of God is richest, fullest, and freest. You want to know the love of God, hang out with Christians on Sunday morning. There is love, love pouring through the windows, love pouring through the doors, love pouring through the psalms and the prayers and the preaching, love on the table, love in the pews, love in the conversation, love in the fellowship. But this is what marks the church. We have the gospel and it grows from that foundation up into a fellowship of love. For God loves this place. God loves this gathering. The third thing we believe about the church is glorious things are spoken of you, oh city of God. When was the last time you said something glorious about your church? When was the last time you thought, 53 Antrim, that's a glorious place. When was the last time you thought of one another and were like, that community, that congregation, there's glory in those people. There's glory in that gathering. The psalmist says, this is true. Now what I want to impress upon you is that in these first three articles that we are looking at, this third one most especially, is these are not ethical commands. These are not summons. The sons of Korah aren't in the Holy Spirit telling us, be based on the gospel. They aren't telling us, be a community of divine love. They aren't telling us, be glorious. They are telling us we are. They're telling us this is already true. This is the doctrine of the church, that glorious bride of Christ. You are a beautiful people. You are a glorious gathering. Because here God gathers with us. Because here we earn, not earn through us, but through Christ, the label, city of God. That this is the right title for our gathering, Salah. Stop and breathe that in for a minute. Stop and drink that into your soul. It is very easy to be angry, and bitter and cynical about the church. She is so often soiled with sin. She is so often suffocating with sorrow. She knows so much poverty and so much need, and we fall so far short of his glory. But this doctrine of the church is our good news today. That we, the church of Jesus Christ, we are built on the gospel, the good news that Christ died for our sin, yours and mine. And we are full from gate to gate with the love of God who loves us. And so we are thus glorious. more glorious than all your homes, more glorious than all the world's governments, more glorious than all your businesses and jobs. These institutions are important and they do the world good, but they all pale in comparison next to the Church of Jesus Christ, in whom is the gospel of God, the love of God, and the glory of God. Glorious things are said of the church. This is true. The church is a society, a city of glory. Now, if we believe this, if this is true of us and our hearts, if this is true of our congregation, true of our church, if we're gonna sing this thing, if we're gonna pray this, and if we're gonna act like this is true of us, what will it look like? First, notice the evangelistic explosion that happens in a church that believes this. Verse 4, among those who know me, I mention Rahab and Babylon, behold Philistia and Tyre with Cush. This one was born there, they say. The sons of Korah are speaking again of an experience that would have been profound in Jerusalem. You see, that city that was established on the Temple Mount, where God was worshiped and the atonement was proclaimed through the sacrifice of a lamb, included this little corner of the Temple Mount called the Court of the Gentiles. And it was extraordinary that that should be there for they were fundamentally and inescapably unclean and could not come into the worship of God in the temple and had to sit outside the temple in the court of the Gentiles. But if you were a good worshiping Jew who went up to Jerusalem three times a year to celebrate being God's people, you would pass the court of the Gentiles. And you would look into that courtyard and you would say, look, an Egyptian. Look, a Babylonian. Look, a Philistine. Look, someone from Tyre and someone from Cush. I practiced pronouncing the word Tyrene three times and it never came out right, so I thought I would skip it. Person from Tyre. Each of these people from these far-flung lands Represent the oppressors of ancient Israel. Represent the enemies of God's people. And as the devout Hebrew goes up to worship, he passes that court of the Gentiles, and he goes through the altar where the lamb is dying, and he steps into the holy place to offer his thanksgiving and prayers, and he says, there's one, there's one, there's one. Do you want the equivalent for the church today? I won't point fingers. When you pass into your seat into the pew, do you stop and think, there goes a blasphemer. There goes an idolater. There goes an adulterer. There goes the immoral and the wicked. For such were some as you, but no more. But no more. Because the gospel is the foundation of this room. Because the love of God is the gate into this room. Because glorious things happen in this room. You are a new creation in Christ Jesus. And though you were born to Babylon, God says to you today, you are mine. Though you were born in sin and misery, Christ says of you today, I died for you. And glory is offered to you, and love is served to you, and the gospel of grace undergirds you. This is the evangelistic energy that awakes in a church who knows who it really is, who understands the great treasures and truths that we have, and then looks out at the world and says, That could be a future saint, that sinner. For all of us are but sinners who have found sainthood in Christ. All of us are just a kid from somewhere, nowhere good. And by God's grace, we are here. We are here. The second thing we will see is the fruitful discipleship of the church. There's this abounding evangelistic energy that awakens in the church when they grasp this understanding. But there is also a love for one another within the church. In verse 5 it says, and of Zion it will be said, Notice, having recounted all the enemies, having recounted all the foreigners, Rahab and Babylon, Philistia, Tyre and Cush, it now turns inward. But of Zion, but of Israel, but of Jerusalem, but of those who can go into that holy place in the temple, it will be said, this one and that one, they were born there. They were born in her, for the Most High Himself will establish her. Not only will we experience the conversion of the nations, that those who are foreign to the grace of God will see in this society, in this city, in this community, love and grace and truth, and so be drawn into it and converted to it, But Zion itself will become this sort of family in which gracious and loving and truthful people grow up within her. This one was born there, and that one was born there. You don't have to raise your hands with me. How many of you begin your testimony with, I was born to Christian parents? Bless God for that gift. Rejoice, little ones, that you were raised in the church where your parents taught you Jesus, where your preacher preached to you Jesus, where you saw the sacraments, where you heard the prayers and the psalms, where God, week by week, walked among you and said, This one's mine. For we see in the next verse, the Lord records as he registers the people's, that sovereign electing love that undergirds all this gospel truth in the church. This one was born there. Stop and think about that for a minute. that come Tuesday night, this whole country will be looking left and looking right and saying this one voted for her and this one voted for him and this one voted this way and that way and try and tally up the total. Boy, do I have good news for you guys. Regardless of the outcome of that mess, there is a God in heaven full of grace and love who is walking around with his Lamb's Book of Life, and on Wednesday morning, whether abroad in the nations or here at home in the church, he is looking down on Americans and Asians and Africans and Europeans and saying, that one is mine. That one is mine. Our identity is first and foremost found in the electing love of God. Not in our nationality, not in our denomination, not in all the labels we wear so frequent and so proudly, but in this principle. That Christ crucified for sinners is the foundation of this society. And the love of God is how you get into it. And it is glorious to be here and to be transformed by those truths. Into each one being a herald of this. Preaching it with enthusiasm and energy to all and any who will listen. those who are foreign and abroad, and those who are growing up among us and with us. And the Lord God Himself walks with the church, through the church, saying, this one is mine, this one is mine, this one is mine. Let me make this a little more immediate for you. When your elders walk up and down the pews and extend a tray to you with bread and cup on it, that's Jesus saying to you, you are mine. You belong to me. And when we bring up these little ones and we go through our ceremony of getting their foreheads wet, and some of them laugh, and some of them cry, and some of them sleep right through it, that is Christ declaring to us, his church, you are mine. You belong to me. If you had grasped with all your heart With all your mind, with all your strength, and with all your soul, this truth, that your Father in heaven is looking down on you today and saying, you are my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. What would it make you want to do? Verse 7, singers and dancers alike say, all my springs are in you. Now our good doctrine, our good theology, would have us say that the source of inspiration for singing that expression of joy, that welling up of enthusiasm, dancing, that physical and fervent expression of joy. Again, for the sons of Korah, that's a physical reality, watching the Levites as they dance before the Ark of the Covenant with David, watching the Levites as they sing in the temple. That's my exegetical hermeneutical safeguard against any of you breaking out in the pews, you know. That's a physical reality for the Old Testament. For the New Testament, it's talking about the experience of the salvation, that we should sing and sing with enthusiasm. And if you bob back and forth, I won't judge you. I do that too. That if there's a surge in the soul that says, I have found a spring, a spring of life, a spring of energy, and a spring of zeal, and when I drink from that spring, it brings me vigor and joy. Now our theology would say that you, that pronoun at the end of the psalm, that should be God, right? What if I told you in Hebrew it's second, it's not second, it's, yeah, second person. Singular feminine. The one person in this passage it cannot be is God. It's feminine. It's the church. It's Zion. The singers and the dancers sing and dance because they've come together with other singers and dancers and they found grace and they found love and they found glory. They found God. And because God is with us and God loves us, we sing. We sing and we dance. We celebrate being the church. We are overjoyed to be the church. It is a beautiful thing to be the church. I know that a great many of you do a great many great things. And I have through my life been invited to do many things. And I was just telling Lydia yesterday, it is psalms like these that have made me want to be a pastor. Because if my Jesus loves the church this much, how much more should I? And to celebrate the beauty of the church with these three truths in our hearts, that this is a city built on the gospel of God in Christ. This is a city gated by the love of God in Christ. This is a city in which the glory of God is made known through Christ. Let us then be those who live like this, speak like this, and celebrate like this. and thus God will walk among us and say, that one, that one's mine. Please pray with me. Our Father in heaven, we give you thanks for this beautiful song. We give you thanks for its tremendous imagery, its powerful poetry. We give you thanks for its depth and its riches. We give you thanks, our Father, that you are this day pronouncing peace and publishing good news to us. And we confess before you, Father, we are sinful and weak and unworthy, and we have not walked in your ways. And we pray, Father, that according to the promises we have heard, you would forgive us in Christ. And we pray, Father, that as we turn from the sermon to the supper, you would lay bare our hearts And under the weight of our guilt and our shame, we would cling to Christ and find in Him a full and sufficient Savior. And then we would rise, Father, from both sermon and supper, with celebration in our souls, knowing we have met with God this day, we have beheld Him face to face, and we ate and drank, but did not die. O God, we give you thanks for these beautiful things and ask that you would seal them up in our souls to the praise of your name and work them out with fear and with trembling in our lives to the glory of your grace. For in your precious name we pray. Amen.