Let's stand for the reading of God's word. This is Psalm 87. A psalm of the sons of Korah, a song. On the holy mount stands a city he founded. The Lord loves the gates of Sion 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 peoples. This one was born there. Singers and dancers alike say, all my springs are in you. You may take your seat. In the joy that it is to be the worship director here at New City, I'm always looking out for new songs to include in our worship services. And not just any new song, but songs that have somewhat of an added value. And what I mean by that is, for example, a song that says something old in a new and fresher way, or a song that speaks about certain aspects of God that haven't been explored that much through song. So in this pursuit of a fresh worship repertoire, I recently came across a song put out by a songwriter I've known for years and known of for years named Wendell Kimbrough called You Belong. It's based on Psalm 87 and it will be our hymn at the table this morning so you can take a peek at it in your bulletin. So As for many things in my own personal life, I have a process for incorporating songs. It's very simple, and it generally goes well if I don't mess with it. The key is to skip the music, leave it aside for a minute, and begin with a text. Because if you're anything like me, any song with a solid beat and a punchy bass line is enough to be enticed into dancing and singing, which can be very dangerous, especially in a Alexa-enabled home with four elementary-age children that can't stop listening to songs about square-bottomed cats and breakfast burritos. So that's why my process begins with a text. And since it begins with a text, In good Reformed tradition, I went ad fontes, to the source of these lyrics, which are found in Psalm 87. So I opened my Bible in Psalm 87 and began reading. And at first glance, I don't know if it was your experience, but the psalm read like a tribute to how great Jerusalem is, in a Leonard Skinner tweet, home Alabama kind of way, but for Israelites, assuring them of how much God loves them, their great reputation, something about weird people living in their midst, but then how God himself, together with everyone else, delights in this glorious city and its citizens. And quite honestly, I wasn't very impressed. So then I just skipped the lyrics and hit play. Yes, I messed with my process and of course was enticed by the music. Again, it's not that difficult to get me swaying. And the music was great, but it was the way in which the composer's poetry exposed the song that did it for me. It inspired me to dig deeper. And this is not a psalm of praise to Jerusalem or to Israel as a geopolitical agent or identity in the world. This is a psalm of praise to the one who founded and established Zion as his own city, the city of God, the place where he dwells, where he can be met, and the place where he calls everyone to take part and belong. Once you read, understand, and digest the psalm in light of that, it can quickly become a favorite, so much that the psalm's tune digs into your heart's grooves. And as the common grace prophet Stevie Wonder puts it, just because a record has a groove, don't make it in the groove. But you can tell right away at letter A when the people start to Move? Yes. And that's exactly what happens in verse 7. They can feel it all over. So let's dig in verse by verse and hopefully end our time together dancing. Spiritually, of course, because we are very good Presbyterians here. So verse 1, on the holy mount stands the city he founded. Now, in the original Hebrew, there are a few nuances that say a lot about this verse. The transliteration would be something like, His foundation is in the holy mountains. So Yahweh, the Lord, would be the His in this verse, as revealed later in verse two. And this is important because the main subject of the sentence is God, and the main subject in this psalm is God. We cannot lose light of that. He and his work are the focus, rather than the mountain itself, and that feels a little lost in translation. Now, as we talk about Zion and Jerusalem, we need to define a few things. Jerusalem was founded on a mountain called Zion. This is Mount Zion, right? But Zion as a city in biblical language is a spiritual reality of the people of God in relationship to God and to each other. be it Israel or be it later the church. That is Zion as a city. So then Jerusalem as a city serves as a physical type or a foreshadow of Zion. All right? Keep that in mind as we go forward. Now what does the idea of holy mountains tell us? Holy is separate, right? Set apart, consecrated with a purpose. Then mountains are elevations that require a certain effort or fitness to ascend, right? Jerusalem, physically, and Zion, spiritually, both sit on elevations. There is a whole collection of psalms called the Psalms of Ascent, because as people made a pilgrimage up to Jerusalem, they did so singing these psalms. Talk about a workout. But spiritually, to ascend Zion, you also require to be fit, spiritually fit, thank God. But we'll get to that in a minute. So while Jerusalem fits the descriptions and statements made about Zion, it does so only as a foreshadow of Zion, of the Zion yet to come, of the holy city that we read about in Revelation, after which our church is named, by the way, New City, right? And just as these mountains point forward, they also hearken back. The way of describing Zion as the mountain where God dwells and where He can be met is meant to recall Sinai, the holy mountain where God met Moses and his people after the Exodus and revealed His law to them. So that which happened at Sinai is also happening here in Jerusalem, and it will happen even in a better way in the church age in Jesus Christ, but it will only reach its full realization with the coming of God's holy city, and we'll see just how. Verse two, the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Yahweh, God loves Zion's gates. Now this is not God's fascination with architectural design and aesthetics or anything like that. Other than serving as protection from the outside and as a preservation of all that was within the city walls, in ancient times the city gates marked the place where commerce, justice, mass communication, the arts, and everything from public philosophical debates to children's play, everything happened at the gates. The gates were the epicenter of all social and cultural interaction. This was where the lifeblood of the city, namely its people, lived out their public lives. The psalmist tells us that it is the people of Zion, therefore, whom God is profoundly in love with. more than any of the dwelling places of Jacob and Israel, which refer to the physical land, which happens to be none other than the promised land, but even so, the hustling and the bustling of the city is what steals God's heart. Verse three, glorious things of you are spoken, O city of God. Zion is no doubt a glorious city. Its publicity is unmatched. It captivates both the hearts and the imaginations of any who has had the privilege of even catching a tiny glimpse of its glory. It is the city of God. It is His ultimate dwelling place. Commentators say that the way that this verse, the sentence, the grammar, the way that it's composed leads us to understand that the contents of the following verse, verse four, are the specific glorious things that are spoken of Zion. by none other than God himself, Zion's founder and now its publicist." This is an oracle of God. This is the climax of the psalm, the focal point of its chiastic composition. That means the way it's structured and composed, where all of it meets is at this center, this verse. that that was the equivalent of highlighting for uh ancient jews and and what do we find here at the center what what is so what is so important that god himself needs to chime in in his own voice so that there is no mistake and no misunderstanding here we find his very own particular reason of why zion is so glorious verse four among those who know me I mentioned Rahab and Babylon. Behold, Cilicia and Tyre with Cush. This one was born there, they say. Who are these people and nations that God himself identifies as being born in Zion? Well, for starters, two tremendously powerful and oppressive enslavers of Israel, Rahab, this is not Rahab as in the story of Jericho, right? The name Rahab recalled a voracious mythical sea creature that came to be associated with Egypt and the way it operated. Egypt, of course, was an archenemy of Israel who through slavery shaped them as a suffering people. Then we have Babylon, right, the Babylonians. They were always a threat to Israel, so much that they ended up destroying Israel, taking their people, deporting their people, enslaving them, and even destroying their temple, what was most precious to the Israelites. Then we have other antagonistic nations, Philistia, right? These are the Philistines, historically aggressive and hot-headed people towards Israel. Remember Samson? Samson married to Delilah. Delilah and all her barbers were Philistines. The Philistines also at one point stole the Ark of the Covenant for themselves, and that didn't go so well. They had to get rid of it quickly because it brought havoc on their nation. They did that, and then Goliath, the most notable of the Philistines. He was just a menacing force for Israel. Then we have Tyre, a prideful, idolatrous, and economically prosperous nation, but probably sketchily funded. Some commentators argue that they even allowed the enslavement of Israel to gain to earn some money. Famously, Jezebel, whom we associate with idolatry, seduction, and treachery, she's an export of Tyre. And then we have Kush, which is modern-day Ethiopia. I couldn't dig up any compromising info on them, but commentators take Kush as a symbol of remoter nations, further removed from the presence of God. Do you see a common denominator here? They're definitely not who you expect to see in the birth registry of the city of God. These nations who at different times saw the destruction of Zion, now they reside in her and they form an integral part of its very fabric. Now, if that's not astonishing enough, The word that God himself uses to describe how this came to be is a Hebrew word for knowing. In verse 4a, among those who know me, that word is yada, which is much more than acquiring information about something or someone. but rather it's a very rich and multi-layered concept that speaks of experience, of moral insight, of intimate relationship, many times used as the sexual relationship. These people have experienced God, they have related intimately to Him, and have found to be morally acceptable to Him. This is just nuts! We're talking about the enemies of God himself. Imagine what it took for faithful Jews to sing this out in worship, because that's how these psalms are used. Like, really? What about the holiness of God and that of us, his people? What about his justice, his character, and his irreconcilability with sin? I don't know if that's even a word, but you understand what I mean. Now, in the back of their minds, they knew God's promise to Abraham to make him a father of many nations. That's what his name actually means. So every time they spoke about him, they were reminded of this. and that God's covenant with him would eventually bless all the families of the earth, including Gentiles. But here it's getting a little bit too real. I imagine the sons of Korah, the authors of this psalm, having to justify their freshly composed psalm before their session, because they were obviously Presbyterian. And perhaps in making their case, they cite a major prophet, Isaiah, as a reputable source of inspiration. Isaiah 2.2 reads, it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of mountains and shall be lifted up above the hills and all the nations shall flow to it. Then I realized that Isaiah, in all likelihood, is later than the psalm, so those are the dangers of getting too imaginative, but he did prophetically validate these lyrics. As a Jew, I'd be thinking, I knew this was going to happen because God is faithful to his words, to his word, but this list of undesirables, these are our enemies, people groups who have hurt us, humiliated, Us! Persecuted us! This is so utterly unfair! In an effort to understand this better, what do you think this would look like for us in the church age here in the West? Depending on your theology, hopefully we aren't thinking much in terms of nations, right? But rather I believe we would think about specific people groups. Imagine coming to worship and I grab the guitar and lead you all in a hymn about atheists, secular humanists, and communists all lining up, entering into heaven. That would definitely get me in trouble. or probably more attuned to our individualistic society, we would all have our own personalized hymn or hymnbook of those we deem unworthy to enter. Maybe it's the rich and privileged oppressors, or the ones idly whining about oppression, or the loud and proud LGBTQ community, or the heteronormative patriarchal bigots, or the Republican or the Democrat constituents, or perhaps it's even more personal, the cheating or violent spouse, the backstabbing colleague or the abusive friend, the toxic parent, et cetera. I don't know what your hymn book would look like. But imagine that, imagine singing about those whom you have crossed out in your heart because of real and deep wounds and irreconcilable differences, and they're the ones being welcomed with open arms into the city of God himself as natural-born citizens. That's what's going on here. Before we continue expositing the text, I just want us to check our biblical hermeneutic framework. Those are big words, but basically it's how we interpret the Bible. What's the grid from which we approach it? And then we'll come back to look at this situation again. So as people of the word, we have the utmost regard for scriptures, right? We believe it's the only rule for faith and life. We believe it's a breathed out word of God himself, sufficient to bring about faith and salvation. Now, if scripture is sufficient, It follows that it is also understandable. That's the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture. It's easy to understand for faith and salvation. Now, there are parts that are kind of unclear, right? And for those parts, for those sketchy parts or unclear, or the ones that are unclear to us, we have more clearer Scripture that provide clarity. Basically, Scripture interprets Scripture. And with this in mind, what do we do with verse four, all these nations, right? In light of, for example, Deuteronomy 20 verse four, which reads, for the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you victory. Or what do we do with it in light of Romans 12 verse 19? Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. And those are just two of many other passages where the Lord promises to defend and avenge his people, or even to destroy their enemies. After all, it's his reputation, his trustworthiness, and his glory that are on the line. While for some, Israel's enemies, now considered to be natural-born citizens of Zion, can make you wonder where God's sense of justice is, The intention of this unsettling image is for you and me to realize we need a paradigm shift. We need our hermeneutical compass recalibrated so that we stop thinking about ourselves as a center of the story. Remember what we said about verse one, God is a subject, not the mount, and definitely not us. Perhaps you have heard Pastor Matt Chandler's well-known sermon on David and Goliath, where many of us came to realize that David does not represent us. We are the random Israelite hidden in the corner of our tent, wetting our pants out of fear while David, the type of Christ, is fighting on our behalf. Or in another pastor, Tim Keller, and his exposition of the prodigal son, we want to think that we would never forsake God and fall as low as this younger brother did, not realizing that we have already forsaken him. We have already, but by desperately trying to do everything right to earn his approval and pleasure, just as the self-righteous and yet totally lost older brother did. Now, if we revisit Psalm 87 with this hermeneutical framework, as we read verse four, we shouldn't be unsettled by the fact that God chooses our enemies as citizens of Zion. Instead, we ought to weep and lament at the profound realization that we were once his enemies. Left to ourselves, we are Egypt, we are Babylon, we are Philistia, Tyre, and even Cush. Left to ourselves, we are the oppressor, we are the insatiable, the deviant, we are the violent, the proud, the abuser. We are the ones naturally born in hostility to God himself. Now would be a great time to transition to the gospel, right? The good news of Jesus Christ and the spiritual birth he delivers. But as I remind my kids often, we only know the goodness of the good news because of how bad the bad news is. And the bad news is this, Romans 5, sin came into the world through one man, that's Adam, and death through sin. And so death spread to all men, because in Adam, we all sinned, and we pile more sin of our own on top of that. Now this is a whole nother level of the notion of death as a great equalizer of humanity, right? This is spiritual death. which is, as the Bible tells us, what we have earned on account of our own sin. This is the superlative equalizer. And by it, we are all born into hostility to God. And because of that, we are deserving of his judgment and wrath. We are naturally born God's enemies. And the Bible puts it in even stronger terms. By nature, we are children of wrath. And that's pretty bad news. But God, on his own accord, sought our reconciliation to him as a free gift of grace. However, he did not do it in a way that contradicts his holy and just character, as many insist to claim, by letting all sin slide and opening wide the gates of heaven in an inconsequential, superficial, God is love kind of way. He cannot and he will not contradict his perfect and utterly trustworthy character, and we ought to praise him for that. In Romans 8, however, we find exactly how God does accomplish this seemingly impossible task. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by His life, His making of us born again. This is scandalous grace. I think of those who have issues with predestination because they perceive it to be a little unfair and think, are you kidding me? The fact that God would extend this kind of mercy and grace at all to those who have violated all who he is and all what he stands for is just astonishing. Now this is packed and worth a whole sermon, but here we see God's enabling of a people to know Him, Yadah, right? To know Him as a Savior, to rejoice in Him for His salvation through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, who took upon Himself all of our crushing sin and offered His own blood as the atoning sacrifice, which would also satisfy the justice of God. Jesus left nothing undone, so that anyone who would put their trust and salvation in Him would be spiritually born again. And this is how Jesus told Nicodemus he could get fit for the kingdom, how he could ascend this spiritual mount. He had to be born again. Specifically, he had to be born of water and spirit. water as a cleansing agent, symbolizing repentance, and spirit as the giver of faith. These are the ones born in Zion, considered natural-born citizens of God, and as such enjoy all its blessings from now into eternity. Of these, God declares, this was one born there. No matter where you came from, no matter how messy or shameful your past is, no matter to whom or what you had previously pledged your allegiance to, once the Holy Spirit works regeneration in your heart, once He rebirths your spirit through the gift of faith that leads to repentance, You belong. Your name can be found in Zion's birth registry. Your name is forever written in the book of life. This is the astounding and marvelous grace of God, the best news you could ever hope for. And the great news about this good news is that it's not only transformative for our eternal destination, but also for our lives right now. As we continue in the text, verse 5, End of Zion, it shall be said, This one and that one were born in her, for the Most High Himself will establish her. Much like your national identity, or your family, or the circumstances of your birth, you didn't choose to be born in Zion. God sovereignly decided it. It's actually God's greatest delight, we read, to establish each and every one of Zion's citizens as they take up their roles and their activities at the gates which God so loves. If you have been born in Zion through repentance and faith in Christ, through water and the Spirit, The realities of Zion are in part accessible to you now in the form of citizen privileges and responsibilities. In verse six, we read, the Lord records as he registers the people. God himself is at the counter, if you will, of Zion's citizen services or equivalent, granting these privileges and these responsibilities to those born in Zion. So what are those privileges and responsibilities of a citizen of Zion? And I'm so glad you asked. Verse seven. Singers and dancers alike say, all my springs are in you. That's it. You get to sing and dance for joy for what God has done for you. Is there anything else more fitting? Okay, there is a little bit more. Singing and dancing were Israel's most exuberant expressions of worship. These singers and dancers assisted in God's praise, and they led others in worship, and here they are doing so with the following chorus. All my springs are in you. Again, you, not Zion, you, God. Now, before we get to the privileges and responsibilities, though, we need to answer, what's this about springs, and where did that come from? Now, these are springs of living water, so it's a bummer if you were like me, thinking that these were special coils for more exuberant dancing, but no. This is a kind of fresh water supply that invites the establishment of a civilization, of cities in their close proximity, so they can thrive and they can flourish. From God's first earthly dwelling place in Eden, his first temple city, there was a river that flowed out of the garden, which was the source of life and fertility to the garden itself and beyond as it spread into the rest of the world. When we read of Zion in Revelation, the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven, there we find the river of life flowing from the throne of God through its center avenue across the whole city. But where's the spring in Jerusalem? Well, this shows us the not yet Zion state of Jerusalem, the fact that they are a people waiting to be fully established, to be fully realized. The prophet Ezekiel, however, prophesied that a mighty river would once again flow out from God's city temple, specifically in Jerusalem. This was recalled every year in the Feast of Tabernacles when priests would go down to the pool of Siloam and bring buckets of water, and they would pour them through the aisles of the temple as a sign of their longing for this prophecy's fulfillment. Then, hundreds of years later, during that same feast, we read in John 7 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive. And then the Holy Spirit was given. to the apostles, to the Gentile believers, to all of those who to this very day would profess faith in Christ, to you, my brother and sister, to me. The Holy Spirit is God's agent of joy and renewal, of refreshment and life. As He inhabits us, we become His temples and carry Zion with us. He is the one who empowers us to live out our Zion citizenship through our God-given privileges and responsibilities. All right, let's talk about those. Our main privilege as citizens of Zion is worship. Singing and dancing? Yes, of course, but also in all the activities you would expect to see at the city gates, which God loves. Done to the glory of our God. Artists and artisans, businessmen, cooks, teachers, children at play, parents, parenting, doctors, saving lives, attorneys and judges, pursuing justice, engineers, doing whatever engineers do, probably fixing the gate, all of this done as an expression and in light of the truth, the goodness, and the beauty of our God. This, of course, in addition to the weekly rhythm of laying even those things down to come together in mighty praise to our God on his Lord's day. This is something we ought not to take lightly. This is the lifeblood of Zion and the utmost joy of our God. Now, what is our main responsibility as citizens of Zion? And that is evangelism. As citizens of Zion interact with our earthly cities, we do so physically and spiritually. There's no separating the two. And as ones who have received the living waters of the Holy Spirit, it's our responsibility to irrigate the parched and barren and hostile soil around us, inviting others to quench their thirst where we ourselves have found satisfying waters. We are to build the city with Zion in our hearts, believing invitations all over the earthly gates. Now, I don't think there has ever been a better evangelistic pickup line, so to speak, than Jesus' give me a drink. He was asking the Samaritan woman, show me what you're drinking and tell me, how's that working for you? Personally, whenever I have had the opportunity to sincerely engage an unbeliever who is willing to open up this way, Whatever it is that they're drinking, that they're pursuing, power, money, sex, moral rectitude, whatever it may be, it's never truly working for them. But Jesus answers the woman, as should we also, whoever drinks of the water that I will give them will never, ever be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. For citizens of Zion, our lives ought to be invitations. for others to come to the waters, both in the attractiveness of our lives, not by what we do, but how the Spirit empowers us and how we worship the one true God of infinite grace and through our evangelistic mission. It's an immense joy to share the story of our birth. That's why we celebrate birthdays. So go, go and tell someone of how you thirsted, but thirst no more. And see how that propels you once again to worship. Now for non-citizens, maybe in here even, by the sheer grace of God, Right here and right now, in this very place, you are on the outside of the gates, looking in. I would commend you to engage with what you see here, with what you hear, with what you experience in the midst of Zion's citizens, and then immerse yourself in the Constitution, the history, the hymns, and the gatherings of Zion, and you will find the King himself, our Lord Jesus Christ, declaring of you with open arms, you belong. Let's pray. This is a verse from another hymn written by John Newton on Psalm 87 titled, Glorious Things of the Air Spoken. See the streams of living waters springing from eternal love. Well supply thy sons and daughters, and all fears of want remove. Who can faint while such a river ever flows their thirst to a sage? Grace which, like the Lord, the Giver, never fails from age to age. We praise you, O God, for your never-failing grace, which finds its greatest expression in the giving of your Son, Jesus Christ, as our Savior and Lord. Father, what a joy to belong with him and together to belong to you through the living, giving work of the Holy Spirit. Empower us, Lord, to live lives fully grasping what it means to be a citizen of Zion, rejoicing in praise and sharing that joy with a thirsty world. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.