"And Grace Will Lead Me Home" Psalm 125 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Let me read for us the hundred and twenty-fifth Psalm.

It is a song of ascents.

Those who trust in Yahweh are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved but abides forever.

As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so Yahweh surrounds his people from this time forth and for evermore.

For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, lest the righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong.

Do good, O Yahweh, to those who are good, to those who are upright in their hearts.

But those who turn aside to their crooked ways, Yahweh will lead away with evildoers.

Peace be upon Israel.

The Christian life, as they say, is faith-based.

But the Christian life is also a life of certainty.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the Apostle Paul says.

It is the substance of things unseen.

But because our faith is in a world, our world exists without seeing God, without beholding God, our faith exists in that world.

We're tempted to believe that faith and confidence are opposites of each other.

It's not true.

Faith is the assurance of the things hoped for.

It is the confidence of things that aren't seen.

People in the world place their confidence in things which are seen, and yet any amount of human reasoning lets you know that when you place your confidence in things in the world, the things in the world disappoint.

Things in the world change, they devolve, they corrode, and they pass by.

Whereas confidence that is placed in the Lord, who is eternal, faith in the eternal and unchanging Lord, should produce a transformative confidence in you.

A confidence in who you are in Christ, in who you are in God, in what God wants for you and what he's called you to be and to do.

And such is the case with Psalm 125.

It is a psalm of faith and it is a psalm of confidence.

This psalm directs our glances to the future to see how the Lord will be at work in our life in the year to come.

Now, last week we looked at Psalm 124.

Psalm 124 tells you to look backwards and look at your past and see how the Lord's grace has brought you to where you are now.

Psalm 125, the very next psalm, spins you around and tells you to look forward and to see how the Lord's grace is going to be at work in your life in the year to come.

So the theological expression for this is a grace sandwich.

I made up that phrase, but I like it.

You look backwards and you see grace.

You look forward and you see grace.

You consider the year 2019 and you see how God's grace has brought you through it.

You look forward to the year 2020 and you have confidence in the future grace that you will experience.

In fact, that'll be our outline this morning, too.

Certainties, two grace-filled certainties for the year 2020.

Obviously, these are perennial truths that are in this psalm.

The psalm wasn't written for this particular calendar year.

In fact, the very nature of it being a psalm of a sense, it was designed to be sung every year.

It gives confidence every single year.

And if you don't know this, the inscription in these psalms, the inscription, as you look at Psalm 125 where it says a song of ascent, that inscription is inspired.

The inscriptions of all the psalms are inspired.

Now, the bold above Psalm 125, it says, the Lord surrounds his people.

Those bold headings are not inspired.

Those are put in there by the Bible translators, the publishers, you know, crossway, but the one in mind, not inspired.

But this superscript down there, a song of ascent, that is inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Infallible, inerrant.

So we know that this is one of the 15 Psalms of Ascent.

Psalm 120 through 134, designed to be memorized, and the Jews would sing it every year on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

The Babylonians took the Israelites into captivity, the tribe of Judah into captivity, spread them around.

The Assyrians took the other 10 tribes into captivity, spread them up even through the modern-day Baltic states, through the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, down into Africa, even modern-day Sudan and Eritrea.

Once the uh the Persians allowed the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem, they took these Psalms of Ascent, and not every Jew made it back to Jerusalem.

Many would come just once a year.

If you lived further away at the outer edges of the empire, you might come back once in your lifetime.

But these 25 or these 15 Psalms were designed for you to memorize and then sing on your journey back.

And so they take on a special significance.

Psalm 124, you're singing about just how incredible is it that God's grace brought me from the far fung places that I was.

He brought me here where I can look at the temple.

And in Psalm 125, you're looking forward down the mountain into Jerusalem, to the temple, confident that God's grace is going to bring you to worship.

Confident that God's grace is going to send you back into the world.

The first of these truths that come from the Psalm, that saints are secure in their faith.

Saints are secure in their faith.

I don't know what this year has for you, but I have a couple things you can be certain of.

The first is this this year, if you are a born-again believer, if you are a Christian, your salvation will be secure this year.

Nobody will take your salvation from you.

You won't lose it, you won't forfeit it, you won't forget it.

It will be yours, and it will be yours if the Lord tarries when this calendar year comes to pass.

Your salvation is secure.

Those who trust in Yahweh, the verse 1 says, are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved but abides forever.

Your salvation is as secure as a mountain is.

You can move a car.

I've even seen people move houses in the back of trucks, but you cannot move a mountain.

Your salvation is anchored to Mount Zion itself.

Now the world changes.

The world shifts.

There are those who draw their identity from the shifting cultures of the world.

There are those that draw their identity and their sense of significance from how they keep up with the fads of the day.

But believe you me, if your identity is in the fads of the day and what the culture deems appropriate for this day, it will be fleeting, it will be fickle.

The things the world cares about today don't even last until supper time before they change.

This world is constantly shifting, constantly changing.

Cultures rise, cultures fall.

Morality shifts and devolves.

That is the nature of the world.

And if you root yourself in those things, those cultural paradigms, those shifting shadows of the world, the allurement of materialism and what this world has to offer, you will slip and you will stumble and you will fall.

But if you root your identity in the person of God, in the truths of the scriptures, the unchangeable, timeless, eternal person of the Godhead, then you will be secure.

Those who trust in Yahweh will never be moved.

A person who tries to keep up with the world is like a little kid ice skating.

It's just sliding everywhere.

There's no foundation upon which to stand.

You slide and you stumble and you fall.

One of my daughters even tries to ice skate by running on her ice skates.

It's cute.

It's not going to be a way to ice skate.

Those who try to keep up with the world and seek significance in the world are like that.

You might be able to stay on top of the ice for a little while, but it will come crashing down.

What a contrast when my girls are ice skating and I can come and hold them.

And I can skate holding them.

One of them might look at me and say, Are you sure you know what you're doing?

And I can say, You are as secure as I am.

That might give you confidence, maybe not.

This is what the Lord says in verse 2 As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so Yahweh surrounds his people.

You are as secure in the arms of the Lord as the Lord Himself is.

Again, if you seek your identity in materialism or the things in this world, you will slip and slide every which way.

But if you seek your identity and your confidence in who God is, he holds you in his arms and he does not let go ever.

You are secure as Christ, particularly as secure as Mount Zion here.

Now, Mount Zion, eight of the 15 Psalms of Ascent mention Mount Zion or Jerusalem.

Mount Zion is where the temple is built.

It came to symbolize the very dwelling place of God with his people.

It has always been a fortress, Mount Zion has, nearly impossible to attack.

Mount Zion itself is not that formidable.

It's not a huge mountain.

In fact, the the water retention dam down in Woodbridge that they've built on the west side of I-95.

Perhaps you see it driving to Woodbridge, that's bigger than Mount Zion is.

So what makes Mount Zion so secure?

The nature of the mountains around it.

Jerusalem, remember, is tucked away.

It's hidden in the mountains.

In the times of Christ and in the ancient Near East, there's basically two highways through Israel along the sea, along the Mediterranean Sea, and along the Jordan River.

They run in parallel tracks through Israel.

In the middle of them is Jerusalem, tucked away in the mountains.

You would never be traveling through the mountains to get to Jerusalem.

You'd have to seek it out.

And to get to it, you're winding up and down through the mountains to get there.

It would take a teenager, 12 or 15 hours to walk from Jericho, the closest city, to Jerusalem.

An adult would take a little bit longer.

A woman with children could take two days to make that walk.

That's where Jerusalem is.

And to get to it, you go over these mountains.

The last of one of you cresses the Mount of Olives.

You go over the top of it and you look down to Jerusalem.

You look down to the Temple Mount.

You look down to Mount Zion.

So what makes Jerusalem secure?

What makes Mount Zion immovable?

The nature of the mountains around it.

You can't do a sneak attack on Jerusalem.

They'll see you coming.

Your closest way to get to the wall, you're cresting a mountain.

They can see you.

You can't sneak up on them.

So it is with those who are in the Lord.

There is no way for sin.

There's no way for the devil.

There is no way for the world to pull, to attack a believer and rip them out of the arms of God.

There are no surprise attacks on God.

You cannot sneak up on him.

What makes Jerusalem secure is not Mount Zion itself, but the strength of the mountains around it.

What makes believers secure is not the believer himself or herself, but the nature of the arms who hold us.

Because the mountains stand is a symbol of God's protection of his people.

The scripture often speaks of God Himself dwelling with his people in the temple.

For example, Psalm 76, verse 1 says, In Judah, Judah is the tribe where Jerusalem is.

Psalms 76:1

In Judah, God is known.

His abode has been established in Salem.

Salem Shalom, it's the word for peace.

It's the word Jerusalem comes from.

God builds his dwelling place in Jerusalem.

His dwelling place is in Zion.

He sets his name on that city.

He dwells there.

The mountains protect it because God protects it.

Meanwhile, Psalm 9, verse 11 says, Yahweh himself is enthroned on Mount Zion.

Psalms 9:11

What this means is that for somebody to get taken from God would require a full-on frontal assault on the gates of heaven itself.

It's often asked, can you lose your salvation?

I've heard this question asked many, many times.

It's a debate that seems to be raging through Christianity.

Can a person lose their salvation?

And a lot of that answer depends on what you mean by that.

Is salvation yours to lose?

Are you responsible for keeping your salvation?

Is it up to you?

And because if it was up to you, you would lose it.

If my salvation was up to me to keep, I would lose it.

I've told you this before, but I lose everything.

Everything.

My car keys.

In fact, we had guests over last night for dinner, and one of them asked Madison, my oldest daughter, what her Sunday morning routine is, and she talked about how she gets woken up, and then she by me leaving, and she looks out the window, she sees me go to my truck, then she sees me come back into the house to get what I forgot, and then go back to the truck.

That's the routine Sunday mornings.

Great.

Fortunately, my salvation does not depend upon my ability to keep it.

I think what people mean by that question is what about people who walk away or who abandon the faith?

But practically what that question really is getting at is how low are you going to set the bar?

How much sin can a person do until you say they've lost their salvation?

Or how righteous do they have to be until you say they have salvation?

It's just not a healthy paradigm to possess.

If you believe that salvation depends upon human will, that a person chooses and acquires salvation for himself or herself, then certainly you would have to believe that salvation can be lost.

It's as sure as the will of the person who chose it.

But if you believe that salvation is supernatural, that it's the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit comes upon someone and gives them faith and brings them to life, then of course salvation is secure because it's God who's doing it.

You become God's possession, He owns you.

There's all kinds of people who make decisions for Christ, external, superficial decisions for Christ, who then apostasize, who then fall away.

Obviously, apostasy is real.

People do make external professions of faith in Christ and then apostasize.

That happens all the time.

But regenerate, born-again believers who've been given faith by God, listen, they never fall away.

Because to snatch a believer out of the hands of God would require overpowering him.

There is no sin, there is no demon, there is no devil, there is no temptation that has strength enough to vacuum a believer away from the arms of God.

It cannot happen.

And that's why the psalmist can say, as the mountains surround Jerusalem, so Yahweh surrounds his people.

Can someone be wrestled away from God?

Can God get out-muscled?

Absolutely not.

So listen, when the weakest saint, the very weakest believer, connects himself to God through faith, he is eternally secure.

When the most immature Christian cries out to God through faith, God holds on to that person and he will never be lost.

However impressive Jerusalem might be, the impressiveness of Jerusalem is totally contingent upon the strength of the mountains around it.

And so it is with believers.

The strongest believer has no strength in and of himself.

His strength comes from the arms of the Lord.

And this is why you need to put your faith in God.

This is why you need to put your faith in the God of the Bible, in the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ.

Is there anyone else who is strong enough to hold on to you?

Is there anyone else who will never fail you?

We put our faith into all kinds of other things, and they always fail.

The closest thing our culture has to a kind of quasi-deity, I think, is Google.

Google knows all things.

Google judges the secret intentions of your heart.

It knows when you're late, it knows when you should leave to be there on time, and it condescendingly offers you corrective suggestions.

You put in Google Maps, I'm looking for the closest McDonald's, and it directs you to Chick-fil-A.

I mean, it is trying to better your life.

Will Google ever fail you?

Will Google Maps ever lead you astray?

Ever?

Yes.

They open up a new exit ramp in the mixing bowl right there, 395 and 95.

Google Maps knows not of it.

They turn the Fairfax County Parkway around, so you have to do that weird clover exit to stay on it.

Google Maps doesn't know that thing for like three months.

I get lost in that neighborhood over there for like three months in a row.

Till Google Maps catches up.

You put your confidence in Google Maps, you will be disappointed.

What else do people put their confidence in in our culture?

Maybe politics?

Maybe you've heard of a person who's put his confidence or her confidence in politics?

Oh, this political leader, this is just what we need.

This political leader will give us confidence.

This political leader will lead us to prosperity and wealth and happiness.

Oh, yes, that's the place to put your confidence.

They will never fail me.

They will never disappoint me.

Can you think of a political leader that's disappointed you?

If you can't think of one in your lifetime, think of your parents' lifetime.

You put your confidence in a leader, what happens?

He fails you.

He disappoints you.

What about people who put their confidence in themselves?

They don't trust Google Maps, they don't trust politicians, but you know who they trust?

Themselves.

They'll provide for their family.

They have a strong enough work ethic.

They can make sure everything is taken care of.

Their confidence is in themselves.

If you put your confidence in the Holy Trinity of me, myself, and I, guess what?

You will be disappointed.

You will be failed by yourself.

You can't trust a computer, you can't trust a politician, you can't trust yourself.

The only person that will never fail you is the Lord.

You put your confidence in him, he will never let you down.

Did God fail you a single time last year?

He absolutely will not start failing you this year.

That's the point of this psalm.

You can put your confidence in the Lord and He will hold on to you forever.

Well, the first truth you can have confidence in is that saints are secure in their faith.

The second truth is that saints will be sanctified in their living.

Saints will be sanctified in their living.

The Lord doesn't just hold on to you, he changes you.

And he changes you for the better.

He makes you godlier.

Verse 3, the scepter of the wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous.

And I'll talk more about that later on this morning, but I want to get to the second half of verse 3.

Lest the righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong.

Again, a powerful illustration here.

The Lord says he will not let an unrighteous person rule over righteous people for a long period of time, because if you have a group of righteous people with an unrighteous person over him, what happens to the righteous people?

They get corrupted, is what the psalmist says.

If you have righteous people with an unrighteous person over him, over time the righteous people get corrupted.

And so the Lord says to Israel, I will not let the scepter of the righteous dwell for a long period of time in your land, because otherwise, this is the interesting part about this, otherwise, God says, you would start sinning.

You would pick up their ways, and so I won't let it happen.

Now it's very tempting to make that nationalistic promise to Israel apply to the U.S.

or to whatever country you're in, but this is a promise that is repeated in the New Testament, but slightly differently, not about nations.

The New Testament version of this promise is this The Lord will not let you be tempted beyond what you can endure, but with every temptation gives you a way of escape.

The Lord will never put you in a situation where temptation is too much for you, because otherwise the Lord would put you in a situation where you would have to sin.

And the Lord would never put you in a situation where sinning is the right answer, ever.

You are never called to sin.

And so with every temptation, God gives you a way of escape so that you never have to choose sin.

A person who falls into sin cannot blame the Lord.

If you fall into sin, it's because you have desire in your own heart that you have fed, that you have nurtured.

That desire has grown, has given birth to sin, and sin then to death.

That's not the Lord's work in your life.

The Lord's work in your life is to give you a way of escape.

He's certain of it.

And that's why verse 4 says, Do good, O Yahweh, to those who are good and to those who are upright in their hearts.

This is where the psalm turns to prayer.

It's a song so far.

It's a corporate song through the first three verses you're singing.

And then it turns to verse 4 a prayer to God.

Do good, God.

Do good.

Yahweh, please do good to those who are good.

We have many songs like that where we sing.

Even to this morning, we sang Man of Sorrows, where most of the song is just a song.

About God, and then at the chorus it bursts into prayer directly to God.

Hallelujah, what a Savior.

That's what this psalm is like.

It's singing about God, that He will keep us secure, He will hold us.

And then there's a burst into a prayer here.

Oh, do good, Yahweh.

Please do good to those who are good.

Now that verse in isolation can cause evangelicals to stumble a little bit because it says, do good to those who are good, to those who are upright in their hearts.

And if you just look at that verse in isolation again, it makes it sound like, wait, I thought there was no one was good.

No one was righteous.

How can you say God do good to those who are good?

And there's righteous people and unrighteous people.

How?

And so you have to zoom out and look at the whole psalm.

There is certainly a progression here.

Verse 1, how are you connected to God in verse 1?

Through faith.

Let those who trust in Yahweh.

And so this psalm is starting off by saying you are connected to God through your faith.

You're not connected to him through your righteousness, but through your faith.

Because you're connected to him through faith, then verse 3, God is sanctifying you.

He's at work to lessen sin and increase your obedience, increase your righteousness.

That leads to verse 4, that through your faith and the work of the Lord, you are good.

You are upright in your heart.

You're not born that way.

You're not that way by your own virtue.

You're that way through faith.

You're that way through the Lord's work in your life.

That's the point.

There are ethical implications to being connected to God through faith.

If you commit to Christ through faith, there are moral mandates that are on your life.

And through salvation, you love those moral mandates.

Through salvation, you love what the scripture says about godliness.

And so you start to grow in godliness.

You start to choose the right over the wrong, the good over the bad.

This verse isn't saying that those who are Christians or self-righteous do gooders, but it is saying those who are connected to God through faith have their hearts transformed to where they love good, to where righteousness dwells in them.

Again, I don't know what this year has for you, but I will promise you this.

365 days from now, you will be godlier than you are right now.

There's no stagnicity in the Christian life.

You can't just stand and chill.

You are either growing or you are rebelling.

And as you pursue the Lord, He's at work in your life to cause you to do good, to cause you to grow.

So I can say with confidence, if you love the Lord and you avail yourself of the means of grace, you will be godlier a year from now than you are right now.

Now, here's the great irony of the Christian life is the godlier you become, the more frustrated you get with your lack of growth.

This doesn't say how fast you'll grow, it's just a promise that you will grow spiritually.

The immature person doesn't get that frustrated that they're not growing that quickly.

Because they're immature.

The mature person gets exceedingly frustrated at the slow rate of growth.

This is the Romans 7 really paradox of the Christian life.

The more immature you are, the less you care about spiritual maturity.

The more spiritual mature you are, the more frustrated you get that you're not more godly.

So, what do you do?

How do you navigate that paradox?

You just submit yourself to the Lord with confidence that he will be at work in you this year for his glory and for your good.

So that's the message of the psalm.

But I want you to notice one more thing in the psalm.

These two truths are not the only two truths in here.

In fact, the opposite truths, the corollary truths, are also presented in the psalm.

Saints are secure and saints will be sanctified, but on the other hand, sinners are insecure and sinners will be immoral.

You see this in verse 3.

The scepter of wickedness will not rest on the land allotted to the righteous.

The wicked people won't get to reign over righteous people for very long.

It won't rest there.

It doesn't say the scepter of the wicked won't ever touch the righteous.

No, it says it won't dwell there.

It won't rest is how it's translated.

The scepter of the un of the unrighteous won't get to build a kingdom in the world of the righteous.

There's a great divide in the world between the righteous and the unrighteous.

And God will not let the unrighteous build a kingdom where the righteous belong.

The righteous build temples.

The unrighteous are allowed to sojourn in tents in that world.

Very briefly.

And that's it.

There's no security in the life of the unrighteous.

There's no security for the people who have no faith in God.

They do not know what tomorrow will hold.

Their whole existence is contingent upon understanding the times, and they don't understand them.

They don't know what tomorrow is like.

So there is no security in that world.

They build their life for materialism, knowing that matter decays, money is spent.

There is no security for those who have no faith.

No security at all.

They have as much security as they have strength in themselves, and that is not trustworthy.

They don't build empires that can be passed down to grandchildren.

They don't get to lay their scepter in the land of the righteous for a very long.

They are insecure.

Sometimes the wicked do prosper.

Sometimes the wicked do persecute.

Sometimes they do set their tents on Mount Zion.

Believers then are called to wait patiently with endurance until the Lord overthrows them.

And we know that the Lord will.

The other truth here is that sinners will be immoral.

Look at verse five.

To those who turn aside to their crooked ways.

It puts you at a fork in the road.

Left is the pathway of faith, the pathway that leads to heaven, to security, and to righteousness.

Right is the pathway of damnation, of sin, of crookedness, of insecurity.

The idea is that you are making progress on one road or the other.

You are moving towards heaven or you are moving towards hell.

Those who turn aside to their crooked ways, Yahweh will lead them away with the evildoers.

That road has a destination.

It doesn't meander forever.

It's not circuitous.

The road of evildoers, although it is crooked, it does lead to hell.

There is a destination.

Those that choose sin over faith will be ushered down that road straight to their own eternal judgment.

That's a sobering reality at the end of this psalm.

Yahweh cares for his children.

But for those who are hostile towards God, for those who have the scepter of unrighteousness, for those that want to dwell on crooked paths, their destination is not heaven, it is hell.

And you hear people say, well, you know, I'm just going to lead as good of life as I can and see what happens when I die.

Oh, I hope that is not you that says that.

That's like saying, I know I took a wrong turn back there, but let me just keep going.

It'll turn out to be the right one eventually.

No, it won't.

You can't just lead your life how you want to and then see where it turns up.

That's called the crooked path.

There is a destination down that path, and that is eternal judgment.

God is eternally good.

Sin is against his character, and so it commands an eternal punishment.

Those who turn aside their crooked ways, Yahweh will lead them away to evildoers.

They will sin.

Don't be surprised when dogs bark.

Don't be surprised when cats meow.

Don't be surprised when sinners sin.

And certainly, if you are one of those sinners, don't be surprised when you are judged by God.

And the psalm ends, verse 5, with this quotation from the Iranic blessing.

Peace be upon Israel.

Peace be upon Israel.

And that really does beg the question.

Shalom to Israel.

It begs the question, I mean begs the question in the real rhetorical sense.

It's assuming something that's not necessarily in evidence here.

Peace be upon Israel.

The psalm begins with those who are have faith in God or as secure as Mount Zion.

And it ends with peace be upon Israel.

And perhaps this question went through your mind reading this psalm.

Is Mount Zion secure?

Did you think that when you're reading it?

Is Mount Zion actually secure?

Is there peace upon Israel?

If your salvation is as secure as Mount Zion, is Mount Zion secure?

I mean, is it not the most contested piece of real estate on the whole globe?

How many different empires have trampled through there?

England took possession of it?

From the Turkish Empire?

From the Ottoman Empire?

Who had taken it from the Crusaders?

Who'd taken it from the Moors?

Who had taken it from the before that, even the Romans, before that, Alexander the Great, and the Persians before that, and the Assyrians and the Babylonians?

What does it mean to say you are as secure as Mount Zion?

Yikes! But understand this, even David captured Mount Zion.

2 Samuel 5.

David took it over and moved his capital there.

Solomon built the temple there.

But do you know that Mount Zion is in the Bible before David?

Jesus was crucified on Mount Zion, buried in Mount Zion, resurrected from Mount Zion.

But do you know that Mount Zion is in the Bible even after that?

So I think to really understand the security of Mount Zion, you have to understand where it enters the Bible and where it leaves the Bible.

Critical.

The first reference to Mount Zion in the Bible, Abraham.

It takes Isaac there.

I mentioned it would take a teenager maybe 12, 15 hours, an adult 18 hours to walk there.

It takes Abraham three days.

Let you know his age.

Takes Isaac to Mount Zion, binds him.

There's no temple there yet.

He's going to offer him as a sacrifice.

The angel of Yahweh stops the sacrifice.

Says he does not require that kind of sacrifice.

Instead, provides a substitute.

From that you learn that God demands the God can only be worshipped, that sin can only be atoned for through a sacrifice.

The sacrifice has to be a human sacrifice, it has to be an only son, and it has to be substitution.

It has to be provided by God.

You learn all of that at Mount Zion.

The foundation of the importance of Mount Zion is that God demands a death for sin.

The death will be an only son, and he will be a substitute.

And so it is of no surprise then that Jesus is crucified on Mount Zion.

That Jesus is buried into Mount Zion.

And that three days later he rises from the grave on Mount Zion.

And then you see Mount Zion again in the Bible.

When Jesus returns, he will return to Mount Zion.

Isaiah 59, verse 20, quoted in Romans 11, verse 26, speaking of the second coming of Christ, says a Savior will come from Zion.

Isaiah 59:20 Romans 11:26

Psalm 2 says, the nations rage, the people plot a vain thing.

The one who is enthroned in heaven laughs, and he says, I have established my king on Zion, my holy hill.

A reference to the Lord taking control of the world at the second coming of the Savior.

His king will reign from Mount Zion.

Micah chapter 4, verse 7 says that Jesus will return to Mount Zion.

Micah 4:7

Zechariah 14, verse 4 says the Savior will descend from the clouds and will plant his foot on the Mount of Olives.

Zechariah 14:4

The Mount of Olives overlooks Mount Zion and will split the Mount of Olives.

Zechariah 14, verse 4 and 5.

Zechariah 14:4

The Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the mount will move northward, the other half will move southward, creating a highway for the nations right into Mount Zion, where the Savior will establish his throne and will reign over the world.

The epicenter of God's redemptive activity in the Bible is Mount Zion.

Salvation radiates, it ripples out of Mount Zion.

All of it going out of the cross, going from the cross back in time to the promise that for you to have your sins forgiven, you need a only son sent from heaven who will be a substitute.

You going forward, looking forward to the future where God reigns over the world from Mount Zion.

When you are connected to God through faith, your salvation is as secure as that.

You can have a psalm that ends with peace.

Peace be upon Israel when you recognize that peace to Israel comes through faith in the God of Mount Zion.

Comes through faith in the God who has a promise about Mount Zion, that you can have your sins forgiven by believing in the Savior who will come there.

But if you reject the Savior, if you don't put your faith in Jesus Christ, then there is no way for you to have your sins forgiven.

There is no peace for you.

But when you look at verse 1 and you look at verse 5, you realize that by faith in God there is peace.

The scepter of wickedness doesn't dwell.

Those kingdoms come and go through Israel.

In point of fact, they come and go.

Alexander the Great visits Jerusalem as a tourist.

Those emperors come and go.

They don't leave a kingdom, they leave a pile of bricks.

When Ezra comes back to Jerusalem, he finds a pile of rubble, not a thriving Persian Empire.

When the Israelites came back to Israel in 1948, they didn't find an empire in Jerusalem, they found the same thing: people in caves, piles of bricks.

But there is a kingdom that will come from there.

The future kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And when he comes, he will bring peace because he brings with him the promise of Mount Zion, the Savior of Mount Zion.

Lord, we're thankful.

The peace with God comes through you.

There is a Savior sent from heaven, a substitute on Mount Zion, not a ram in the thicket, but the only begotten Son of God.

Jesus Christ, He is our Lord.

He is the one who takes away the sins of the world.

He is the one that bears our burden.

He is the one that sanctifies us through the sending of His Spirit.

He's the one that protects us.

Because we're in Christ, Father God, we know that we are in your arms.

You could no more lose us than you could lose your own Son.

And so we pray to you with confidence for this year to come, confidence that you will do good to those who are good, and that you change those who are connected to you through faith into righteous, holy people.

Be at work in our lives this year.

We pray with confidence that you hear our prayer, not confidence that you will make us sinless, not confident that we won't stumble, that we won't doubt, that we won't waver or wane.

We will do all those things.

But with confidence that you will be at work in our lives through it all to make us more godly than we are now and to keep us secure in your grip.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for being with us today.

And now a parting word from Pastor Jesse.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, emmanuelbible.church.

If you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here to manual.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.