How the City Makes Glad

And this is God's holy word.

Psalm 122, a song of ascents of David.

I was glad when they said to me,

Let us go to the house of the Lord.

Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.

Jerusalem, built as a city that is bound firmly together,

to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord,

as was decreed for Israel to give thanks to the name of the Lord.

There thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

May they be secure who love you.

Peace be within your walls and security within your towers.

For my brothers and companions' sake, I will say,

Peace be within you.

And for the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.

This is God's word. Let us pray.

Lord, we ask now that you would help us to focus on your word

that we would receive from you tonight,

that you would take away the burdens, the distractions

that are creating barriers now in our heart and our minds

to looking at this passage you've written to us.

We recognize that though this was written in an ancient time,

in an ancient hand by David himself,

that you have written this in your providence for us too.

And so we come now and ask that you would help us to believe that and see it.

And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.

There are 15 Psalms of Ascent.

The Psalms of Ascent are a whole group of Psalms

from Psalm 120 to Psalm 134.

So this is the second of them.

Psalm 121 is the first.

And Psalm, excuse me, I should say, this is the third of them.

And the reason they're called the Psalms of Ascent is that three times a year

for Israelites that believed in the Lord,

they are called to come to Jerusalem if they're able for feasts.

And so when you would travel as an Israelite in the ancient world to Jerusalem

three times a year, that was a pilgrimage.

You were a pilgrim on a journey.

And the Psalms of Ascent are songs you would sing along the way,

songs you would sing at different points throughout the journey.

And so we don't do this as much anymore.

I guess we wear headphones or AirPods throughout the city.

And maybe every once in a while we might sing out loud while we're walking around.

But in the ancient world, people would always sing

while they're walking and traveling places.

If you've been to the military tattoo across the street,

you know that the tattoo is framed around that,

that there would be a band that would go with the army as they travel

and people would sing songs.

And so the Psalms of Ascent are the songs that Israel,

the Israelites sang along the journey to Jerusalem three times a year for the pilgrimage.

And those three feasts were Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Booths.

And so you would travel to Jerusalem for Passover to remember the Exodus story.

You would travel to Jerusalem for Pentecost to remember the giving of the law

on Mount Sinai, the Ten Commandments.

And you would travel for the Feast of Booths as a memorial for the time in the wilderness,

living in tents, living without a home.

And so in each of these, you would go,

you would make a sacrifice to the Lord in Jerusalem at the temple,

and you would bring your very best, the best of your grain,

the best of your sheep, your lambs.

And really, it was all about remembering what God had done for Israel historically

and what God had done for you in your life.

And you come to these and you say,

how can we, as New Testament Christians, sing the Psalms of Ascent?

What does that mean for us?

We don't go to pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year, nor should we.

What does it mean as a person on this side of the gospel

to sing a psalm like we just sang, Psalm 122?

And the reason we can sing them is because they're God's Word.

That's a good start.

But also because in Hebrews chapter 3 and 4,

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

the writer to the Hebrews says that if you are a Christian tonight,

you too are a pilgrim.

It's the same language.

You are an exile.

You are a wanderer.

You are wandering through the wilderness of this life towards a city, a Jerusalem.

And so these psalms, the Psalms of Ascent,

become new songs for us in a different way as New Testament pilgrims.

And the theme, I think, here is the very first, the third word, verse 1,

David arrives in Jerusalem and he says, I was glad.

So the question tonight is, what makes for true gladness?

What makes for true gladness?

And where is that to be found secondly?

And then finally, how do you seek that?

And so that's how we can sing the Psalms.

What makes us glad?

So let's think about that together.

First, what makes for true gladness?

Verse 1 and 2 is the focus here.

Two things that will help us here.

A couple more things to know about the Psalms of Ascent.

The first is that by tradition outside the biblical text,

we know that the Israelites often,

when they went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year,

they would often refuse to sleep in any built structures.

So if you were coming towards Jerusalem and you found a house,

you found a friend that lived a little bit closer to Jerusalem than you,

you wouldn't go inside their house and sleep.

You would actually sleep outside the house in a tent or just on the ground underneath the stars.

And that's because you were there to relive the Exodus story.

You were there to relive the time in the wilderness.

You were there to relive the struggle.

So it was not meant to be easy.

It was supposed to be hard.

You don't sleep in a comfortable bed.

You sleep out under the stars.

And then the second thing to know then,

to really make sense of Psalm 122,

is Psalm 122 comes after Psalm 121, right?

I think that's a fact.

And that's important because the Psalms of Ascent,

they build on each other.

They grow.

And you remember, probably if you've been in the church at all for any time,

that Psalm 121 has that very famous line where the psalmist says,

I lift my eyes to the hills, and I ask, where does my help come from?

And then it's antiphonal, meaning a choir or somebody else sings back to him and says,

my help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

He keeps me.

Now, why in Psalm 121 did they say that?

And it's because you're on the pilgrimage, and this is not,

oh, I lift my eyes to the hills, and I notice God.

I look at Arthur's seat.

I look at the best of the highlands, and I say, look at God.

He's amazing.

Look at how great the creation is.

That is not what it's talking about, though that's true.

When Psalm 121 says, I lift my eyes to the hills and ask,

where does my help come from?

It is because they're afraid.

They're sleeping outside.

The hills in the ancient world are a place of danger, not safety.

It's the place where you would get robbed, where bandits tried to hide out for you.

It was the place, often in the Old Testament, of the false gods,

where Asherah poles and Baal worship sites were set up all throughout the mountains.

And so they say, I lift my eyes to the hills outside of Jerusalem,

and I realize, if I'm going to make it from my home to Jerusalem,

where's my help going to come from?

So that's Psalm 121.

It's about the journey, and will my keeper keep me all the way to Jerusalem?

But then you come to Psalm 122, and the point is,

I was glad when they said, let's go to the house of the Lord.

And then verse 2, here it is.

Our feet are now standing in the gates of Jerusalem.

So you see that they've done the travel, Psalm 121, Psalm 122.

My feet are now, have arrived inside the gates of Jerusalem.

That's what David's saying.

I'm so thankful to have finally made it.

And there's a sense here that the psalmist is saying the pilgrimage,

the pilgrimage includes a sense of homelessness,

a sense of wandering, a sense of,

I'm on the journey, and I'm not yet home.

But then in verse 2 of Psalm 122,

but now when I come to Jerusalem, here I am.

I'm standing here.

I finally made it to where God has sent me, where I want to be.

And that tells us that in verse 1,

boy, this makes sense, verse 1.

Because in verse 1, what does David say?

I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the,

and we should expect there it should be temple of the Lord.

But that's not what he says.

I was glad when they said, let us go into the house,

or the Hebrew word is home, of the Lord.

And what David is saying is, when I go into Jerusalem,

and I get through the wilderness journey, the pilgrimage,

which is full of dangers and toils and snares,

and I finally am standing in the gates,

and I see the temple, he says, I just want to be home.

And in this psalm, he says that home is being in the home of the Lord,

where God dwells in the midst of the city of God in Jerusalem.

And that means that the point of this passage is simple,

and it's to just say this,

real home for the pilgrim believer is wherever God makes his home.

And that's what David's saying.

He's saying, I knew finally that no matter where I come from,

no matter where you come from,

that you will never be fully home

until you arrive at the place that God has made home,

where God calls home.

I, every single person in this room knows what it feels like

to come off the back of a long work day and come home.

And everybody in here knows what it's like

to come off the back of a long trip and come home.

And it doesn't matter how good a holiday is.

There are times on the best holiday you've ever had

where you think, I just want to be at home,

and I just want to get back to normal,

and I just want to get back to my routine.

And the relief that that is.

I can say, I did it a month ago,

that when you take five kids 32,000 feet in the air

across the Atlantic,

no matter where you land,

whether it's New York, Atlanta, Philadelphia,

it doesn't matter, Edinburgh, London,

wherever you land, you think, this is now my home.

I just want to be off the plane.

I just, you think, this is such relief.

We all have that sense, you know,

the existential reality of being relieved

to not be traveling anymore.

And that's what's being talked about here,

but it's being, in other words,

that feeling we get when we finally drop our bags

or we come home from work after the worst day.

And think, I'm finally home.

That sense of existential relief

is the tiniest, tiniest little shadow

of what's being talked about here.

And we can all say,

there is a home that I've yet to experience

that I really long for,

and this passage is telling us

that that home is wherever God makes home.

And that will never really be home

until we get there.

Now, that's why I think,

in verse one,

David uses the word glad.

And glad,

the word glad here

is not really

the sense of

the modern word happy,

which is sort of a cheap word,

and we use that

in a really thin way.

But the word glad here

has a real thickness to it

and a depth to it

in the Hebrew text.

And I know this is a very old word,

but it corresponds

a little bit more

to something like mirth

or to be merry.

You know,

we stop saying Merry Christmas,

but that's the word merry,

mirth.

It's this real deep sense of gladness,

what the New Testament calls joy.

Joy is what's being talked about here.

One of the favorite moments,

one of my favorite moments

in The Lord of the Rings

is when,

in the third book,

The Return of the King,

Gandalf and Pippin

are facing a great battle.

And Pippin,

the hobbit,

looks up at Gandalf's face

in the midst of sorrow and trouble,

and it says,

in the wizard's face,

Pippin saw at first

only lines of care and sorrow,

though as he looked more intently,

he perceived that under all

there was a great joy,

a fountain of mirth,

enough to set a kingdom laughing,

were it to gush forth.

And, you know,

this life we live is sad,

it's hard.

Life in this earthly existence

we have so far

gives you a lot of wrinkles

and a lot of bags under the eyes,

like Gandalf had

when he was battling

in Minas Tirith.

But Pippin looked up at Gandalf

and said,

underneath it all,

I could see

that there was a joy,

a fountain of mirth,

that would burst forth

and make us all laugh

if it was just to let it go.

And here,

we're being told,

David is saying

something like,

when I step into the place

that God has made home

in this earth for now,

it creates for me

a fountain of mirth

like nowhere else.

What makes glad?

Being home with God

makes glad.

It's the only thing

that can bring

absolute gladness

to your life.

Secondly,

where is this home exactly?

Where is this true gladness

to be found spatially?

Now, the psalm turns

from verse 1 and verse 2

that the home

where the Lord,

the temple,

that's what makes me glad.

But then,

he does something

a little bit unexpected

and he turns

not just to talk about,

you expect him,

I think, David,

to talk about the temple

and the home of God

and say,

now I get to go

into the temple

and be in God's presence.

But instead,

in verse 3 and following,

he turns and he starts

talking about

the city as a whole.

He talks about

the city of God

in the Old Testament,

Jerusalem.

And just look at

some of the things

he said.

He says in verse 3,

Oh, Jerusalem,

built as a city,

bound firmly together,

to which the tribes

go up.

And one of the things

he's doing here

is he's actually

standing in the gates.

The temple is out

in front of his vision

above him.

But David is literally

looking around

and saying,

wow,

look at the architecture

of this great city,

how firmly

it's been put together.

And you can go through

and see how he talks

about this beauty

of the place

that he loves to be,

the city he loves to be.

And he goes on

from there

and says in verse 4,

this is the meeting place

of all the tribes

of Israel.

So he's thinking there

of the fact that

when you get to Jerusalem,

the city that makes glad

and the home of God

that makes glad,

you know,

it's like those moments

where you have

a reunion with family

that you've not seen

in a long, long time.

We got to experience

this summer.

We had,

I had a nephew

that I'd never met before,

a niece I'd never met before.

And this summer,

I went and we met them

and all the cousins

are together.

And you think,

boy,

I love being here.

How being here

makes me glad

because all the peoples

are gathered.

So you can imagine

that when you come

to pilgrimage every year,

as an ancient Israelite,

you are going to see

family members

that lived on the other

side of Israel

that you had not seen before.

You're going to see people

that you said,

oh,

I remember you

from the last Passover

and that you had met

and you come

and you greet.

And you see,

in other words,

David is turning

and saying,

true home

is being wherever

God is home.

And true home

is also being

in a physical,

gorgeous,

spatial,

embodied place

where the people

I love are here.

And so David looks around

and he notices that.

And this is really

an ode to true home,

an ode to that city

here.

And in verse 5,

the last thing he says

about it is he says,

there in that city

the thrones of judgment

are set,

the throne of the house

of David.

So he looks up

and he says,

this is a place

where at the center

is the throne

of the house of David,

the throne

that represents

righteousness

and justice

and safety

and peace

and that can never

be thwarted,

that is forever

by covenant of God.

And he's resting there

in the fact that

this place is a place

of justice

and peace

of rest,

of safety

after coming out

of the hills.

Now look,

we all know tonight,

if you are a Christian

tonight,

if you've read

much of the Bible

tonight,

you know that

David is here

talking about Jerusalem

yet this Jerusalem

is not ultimately

the city David

is talking about.

David here,

he knows

something more

and boy,

do we know more

and that's

that there

is nothing

but a shadow

of the true

city of God

that's being reflected

on in the psalm.

And that's even

in the psalm itself,

you know,

verse 6 to 8,

he turns to

other people

that are traveling

with him

and he says,

pray for the peace

of Jerusalem,

may it be secure,

those who love you,

peace within your walls.

The reason that

David has to say that

is because there

has not been peace

in Jerusalem

and we know

as you read

the rest of the Bible

there's not going

to be peace

in Jerusalem

and this city,

these walls,

this temple

is going to be destroyed

and it is not

a lasting city,

it's an earthly city

where God has chosen

to make a temple

a temporary home

and you could,

we won't do it,

but you could go through

the rest of the Old Testament

and look at the prophecies

about the city,

the true city

that this Jerusalem

points to.

I'll just mention

a couple of them

for you.

Ezekiel 36,

Ezekiel 36 says,

on that day,

the day of the city

of God,

the land laid waste,

Jerusalem laid waste,

will become

the Garden of Eden.

And so Ezekiel says,

the true city

that you should look for

is a city

that looks like

the very Garden of Eden

and in the Garden of Eden

it's a place

of peace,

of safety,

of rest,

but one of the most

distinctive features

is that when you

traveled to Jerusalem

in Psalm 122,

and you got to the

home of God,

the temple,

there's a veil,

there's a curtain,

and there is only

one person

in the whole city

that can pass

through that curtain

and be in the presence

of the living God

on earth,

only one.

But that's not what

the Garden of Eden's like.

In the Garden of Eden,

Adam and Eve,

the promise is that

you can walk

hand in hand

with God

as a friend.

You can know him

so intimately,

so securely.

And so we see

that this is not

the city,

that this is the city,

but it's not the city,

and that's why

I think one of the ways

to express this

is that every,

there's a hint of this

in the human experience

of nostalgia.

Nostalgia

sometimes really gets us.

I've had some nostalgia lately.

I got invited

to my 20th class reunion

for the high school

that I graduated from

recently.

I'm not going

to be able to go,

but you know,

you get something like that,

an invitation like that,

and it brings memories

of people that you

don't think about anymore,

you know,

memories of that time

with that person,

and you see the invitation

list and who's coming

and think,

man,

I forgot that that guy

existed,

but we used to be friends.

And there's a nostalgia

that comes with that,

and nostalgia is a really

tricky thing,

a funny thing,

because what nostalgia does

is there's something

beautiful about it,

but it always contains

a lie,

right?

Nostalgia always contains

a lie.

I haven't been back.

I don't know about you.

Most of you will probably

have a little more frequency

in maybe visiting the home

you grew up in

or maybe passing by it

if it's still around.

I haven't seen the home

I grew up in in many years,

but I remember after

about a 15-year hiatus

of seeing the home

I grew up in,

finally being back

in my hometown

and seeing it,

and it was exciting.

You know,

somebody else lives there.

I don't know who they are,

but you kind of stand outside

and you want to walk

on the property,

but then you think,

I shouldn't do that.

I'll get arrested

in America,

maybe,

and, you know,

I have to stay away.

But one of the experiences

I had was to say,

wow,

and yet,

the house was so much smaller

than I remembered,

and I could see

where my window had been,

and I thought,

it doesn't look great,

it needs a facelift,

it needs a little renovation,

but that is what we painted it,

you know,

and the grass is not as green

as you remember,

and the trees are not,

and et cetera,

et cetera,

et cetera,

right?

And you experience nostalgia,

and there's something

of a lie in it,

and that's because

no matter how much

we find a place

in this earthly life,

in these earthly cities

that we call home,

there is always

a reality

that there is a lack in it,

and you go back

to your home

from childhood,

and you say,

this was good,

but it's not actually

filling the ultimate need

that I'm looking for.

There's a word in German

that some of the German

philosophers use,

famously Freud

talked about this,

or someone like Heidegger

who's less well known,

and Unheimlichkeit,

and it's hard to translate,

but it's got this sense

of un-home likeness,

and it's a reference

to that feeling

that we sometimes get

where we are at the place

we're supposed to be,

but there's a strange sense

where we're also

not supposed to be here

at the very same time,

that we're not yet home,

that it's not fulfilling

all of our desires,

that it,

that's life in this world,

that's what they said,

and one of my favorite books

is C.S. Lewis' novel,

Till We Have Faces,

and this is the words

he puts in one

of the characters' mouth,

Psyche,

about coming home,

and I think he's got

the Psalms of Ascent

maybe in mind here.

The sweetest thing

in all my life,

she says,

has been the longing

to reach the mountain,

to find the place

where all the beauty

came from,

my country,

the place where I ought

to have been born.

Do you think

it all meant nothing,

all the longings,

the longing for home,

for indeed,

it now feels

not like going,

but like going back

to where I belong.

All my life,

the God of the mountain

has been wooing me.

Oh, look up once,

at least before the end,

and wish me joy

in these final days.

I am going to my love.

And he's reflecting there

on the fact

of what David's reflecting on,

and that's that

there is no earthly city,

no earthly home,

no earthly experience,

no success,

no relationship,

no person,

as good as it all is,

that can be

absolute home for us,

that can fill

the desires of the heart,

that can really,

really fill the gap

deep down

at the bottom

of our soul.

And that's why

700 years later,

700 years after this moment,

there was another pilgrim,

and that pilgrim

was coming to Jerusalem

for the feast of Passover,

just like in Psalm 122.

And that pilgrim

stood above

in the hills

outside the city of Jerusalem,

and he looked down

at the city of Jerusalem.

And what did he say?

It says that,

we're told in the Gospels,

Jesus wept for Jerusalem.

And it says,

would that even you,

Jerusalem,

had known on this day

the things that make for peace.

Would you be willing

to receive peace,

but now they're hidden

from your eyes.

And the reason Jesus

was weeping

is because he knew

that just like

every other place,

Jerusalem is a city of man.

It's an earthly place.

And he knew

that when he entered in,

he would not be glad

when he entered the gates.

He would be rejected.

He would suffer.

He would die.

He would be,

in other words,

you know,

we can say the same thing.

It's anachronistic,

but Edinburgh rejected him.

Glasgow rejected him.

Jerusalem rejected him.

Natchez, Mississippi,

where I'm from,

rejected him.

Humanity rejected him

when he came

because no earthly city

could be true home

unless the Son of God

become the builder

and he established a city

whose foundations

come from the Lord.

And that's why tonight

in a minute

we're going to sing

the Charles Wesley hymn

and Can It Be

where it says,

he left his father's home

above so free,

so infinite his grace,

he emptied himself

of all but love

and he bled

for Adam's helpless race

in order to be able

to give us true home again.

And so tonight

we can say that

because Jesus Christ bled,

the veil was torn.

And because the veil was torn,

we really can,

in this earthly pilgrimage

we're experiencing right now,

know that if you're struggling

and saying,

I'm just not satisfied

with where I am,

well, let me say,

that makes sense.

You're not home.

You will not be satisfied

with where you're at,

not fully,

not until God brings you

all the way to the mountain.

And he can do so

because Jesus Christ bled

for Adam's helpless race.

So let me conclude

with this finally,

briefly.

How can you,

in this life right now,

you know,

you say,

well, look,

that's all future.

What am I to do

with this today?

What can you do

with this today?

Let me say two things

as we close.

First,

today,

in order to bring this home

to us right now

in this moment,

in 2025,

in our city,

first,

we have to realize

and recognize

the city of God,

true home,

is not yet.

And what I mean by that

is we've got to grapple

in our hearts

and in our minds

with the objective reality

that the city of God,

first,

is a real destination.

So where do we see

this moment,

Psalm 122,

fully fulfilled?

And that's in Revelation 21,

where Jesus Christ

brings down

the new Jerusalem

to this earth.

and he builds

a physical,

embodied space

where all the tribes

gather with him.

That's true home.

And one of the things

I just want to invite you

to do tonight

is I want to ask you,

is the new Jerusalem,

the city of God,

a real destination

in your heart and mind?

It is real objectively,

but are you grasping

hold of that subjectively?

And we sang tonight

at the beginning

about hope,

and the Bible talks

about hope,

hope in the city

that is to come.

And boy,

that makes all the difference,

the fact of the new Jerusalem,

the reality of it.

C.S. Lewis one more time.

He says,

creatures are not born

with desires

unless satisfaction

for those desires exists.

A baby feels hungry,

well,

there's such a thing as food.

A duckling wants to swim,

well,

there's such a thing as water.

And if I find in myself

a desire

which no experience

in this world

has yet to satisfy,

the most probable explanation

is that I was made

for another world,

another city,

another home.

If none of my earthly pleasures

satisfy,

it doesn't prove

that this is all a fraud.

Instead,

it points me to something

beyond this earthly city,

beyond this earthly life.

So the first thing

is to say,

the city of God is coming,

it's real.

Have you let that really

get down into your heart

and shape your experiences

in this life,

your hope,

your expectations,

and settle your expectations

for the kind of satisfaction

you can actually experience

in the earthly city.

One pastor I came across,

I got this illustration from him,

I thought it was very helpful.

He says that,

imagine two men captured

in a raid of their city,

their city burned,

their city destroyed,

and these two men are captured,

they're imprisoned,

they're thrown into a pit,

and they both saw the city burn,

but the first man believes

that his family's still alive,

and that there are people

out there looking for him,

and the second man is told,

there is nothing left,

everyone's dead,

and they're both given

a 10-year prison sentence.

How did each of them deal

with the sentence?

One man is trying every day

to wake up and press on,

right?

But the other man

finds himself in a place

of hopelessness.

In other words,

the expectation

of what's on the other side

means everything

for how you live your life today.

The expectation

of the city of God to come

means everything

for how you live your life today,

and so the expectation

of true home that is to come

helps us so much

to simply do this,

it helps us to not make

all the little creaturely things

in this world

into the gods

that we think can be to us

the city of God.

Expecting that our home

is not yet helps us so much

prevents us from letting

all the crummy little

and sometimes beautiful things

in this life,

it prevents us from turning them

into the city of God

in our hearts.

Lastly,

and we'll finish with this,

not only do we have to know

that the city of God

is not yet,

but today we've got to know

that the city of God

is also now.

And what I mean by that

is very,

at the end of this passage,

David says,

pray for the peace of Jerusalem,

pray for peace in its walls.

How can a Christian say that?

What do we mean by that today?

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem,

and of course we can pray

for physical peace

amongst human beings today

in the midst of conflicts,

but something more

than that's going on there,

and that's this,

that how,

in other words,

we could say,

how is the city of God

present today?

And this is a complicated theology,

but I'll simply say this.

The city of God

is present today

in the fact

that God's people

are citizens

of the city of God today.

And so what the church is,

is when we gather,

when this group

gathers together,

we are a one-hour

momentary glimpse

of the city of God

that is to come.

That's what this means

when we gather together

for worship

week in and week out.

And so,

if you are a member here,

if you're a member of a church

in the free church,

you will have taken a vow

that says,

do you promise

to seek the peace

and prosperity

of the church?

And in Psalm 122,

Psalms 122:7

verse 7 and 8,

when it says,

pray for the peace

of Jerusalem,

you can say,

that means to me today,

pray for the peace

of the church,

for its prosperity,

for its unity,

for its protection.

And this is the last word.

Boy, David,

he comes into the city

of Jerusalem

where God has made his home

and he said,

it made me so glad

to be there.

And he looked around

and he saw his cousins

and he saw the people

that he hadn't seen

in a long time

and it gave him

the biggest amount of joy.

If there is

the smallest

in our hearts tonight,

the smallest,

a little bit of joy

when you come into church,

a little bit of joy

and you look around

and you say,

the people of God,

my spiritual cousins,

brothers and sisters,

being with God's people

in God's presence,

in God's place

makes me glad.

If there is a little bit

of that for you,

how,

can you imagine

what it is going to be like

when you step foot

into the true home,

the city of God,

when Revelation 21 happens

and you first enter the city?

And Ligon Duncan,

he puts it this way,

if God in that moment

were not holding

the hearts of all his people

steady,

we would explode with joy.

Rest tonight

and be glad

in the midst of a tough life,

hard life,

sad life,

lots of trouble,

with the words of the psalm.

Let me finish

with Psalm 87.3,

a parallel psalm

and it says this,

glorious things

are said of you,

O city of God to come.

Glorious things

are said

of the city of God.

Let's pray.

Father,

we ask for hope

in that reality.

We want

to experience

just a taste tonight

of the joy

of the city of God

that is to come.

And so,

sometimes it can be hard

to come into church

on a Sunday night

and feel joy,

Lord,

but that's what we're here for.

Give us that,

we ask,

in the midst of trouble

and sad

and bags under our eyes

because of hardship.

As we read about earlier,

we come,

Lord,

and ask for this gift

of hope and joy.

Set our eyes tonight

on the new Jerusalem

and on the time

that is ahead of us

in the city

that makes glad.

Lord,

we want to even imagine

what it must be like

to be in a place

where there is

no more sadness

or anxiety,

no more trouble.

And that's what

you promise us,

Lord,

so give us a taste

of that

as we sing

this classic hymn

tonight before you

and Can It Be.

We want to bring

these words to you,

Lord,

touch our hearts

to bring these words

to you,

Lord,

and we pray that

in Jesus' name.

Amen.