I was thinking about verse three in that passage. And David says, what time I'm
afraid. I wonder if there are times where
we've ever really, truly been afraid. Not just afraid. You know, we talk about trials
and tribulations and the things that we go through, but it's
that fear. And I believe that kind of begins
a salvation when we realize who and what we are and who God is. When we come to a knowledge and
an understanding of our sin, That's a fearful time. And you know, it also says that
he takes our tears and he keeps them in his bottle. When you read in Revelation,
it talks about the prayers of the saints being in the bowels
of God. It's like our tears and our prayers. They're his. There it is. That was a blessing. Psalm chapter 64 this morning.
I wonder if there's any other place
that we'd rather be than where we are right now. Is there any
other place that we'd rather be than right here at this moment? And as we're here this morning,
I wonder, are we just here in a pew or are we also here in
our hearts and in our minds? There's a lot of times where
I've sat right there, but I wasn't here in my heart. or in my mind it would wander
or I'd be consumed with something else or worried about other things. So I pray this morning as we're
here that we're here not just in a pew but in our hearts and
in our minds with a desire and a need to hear from Him, to hear
from our Lord. Now I wanna look at Psalm chapter
65, verse four. David writes, he said, blessed
is the man whom thou choosest and causes to approach unto thee
that he may dwell in thy courts. We shall be satisfied with the
goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. And in the book
of Psalms, we read a lot about the blessed man. Psalm one actually
begins with blessed is the man. And there's a lot of passages
in the Psalms where David talks about the blessed man. But it
is my just opinion that this particular Psalm is kind of the
foundation if you will, of what Paul talks about when he talks
about the blessed man. He says, you know, blessed is
the man that trusts in the Lord. And there are so many examples,
but you know, I believe that there are a few of them that
specifically you gotta kinda like look at first. And then
it begins to shed light on the rest of them. And this is one
of them, I believe. There's one in Psalm 33 where
it talks about blessed is a man whose iniquity is pardoned, whose
sin is covered. And as you look at the Psalms
and you begin to see what David declares concerning the blessed
man, we see in so many of those instances that it really speaks
of Christ and who and what we are in Him. We're blessed because
we're in Him. Blessed is a man that walketh
not in the counsel of the ungodly. Is there anyone here that can
say that they've actually done that? No, but in Christ I have. And I do believe that this is
just one of those just foundational texts that when you look at it
and you consider it, it begins to pull in all the others and
they make sense and you see it clearly. And that word blessed
right there, it's a very, it's a very simple word. It just means
happy. Happy. Every time that it's used
in the Word of God, it is either used as blessed or it's used
as happy. Happy. I kind of thought about that
this morning when I was just kind of sitting in my chair and
I was thinking about the message and, you know, I've got my notes
and I've got some things that I want to say, but all of a sudden
I just started thinking about that word happy. And it was like,
I kind of wondered, had I missed the mark a little bit? What is it to be happy? And are we happy? We're not always happy, are we?
I mean, it's an emotion. We talk about the Lord, you know,
we cry and the Lord keeps our tears. We have many emotions,
happiness, sorrow, we have feelings, pain. So this isn't necessarily just an
emotion. but it's an actual state of being. We are happy. We are blessed. No matter what we go through
or what we experience or how we may feel at that moment, we
may lay on our bed at night and our pillows may be soaked with
our tears, but we are happy. That never changes. because that
happiness and that blessedness is in Christ and he's faithful.
He never changes. But David said, blessed is the
man. And who is the blessed man in this world? My hope and my
desire is that we can look into the word of God this morning
and actually see who the blessed man is. There are some in this
world, not all, some. a remnant, a chosen. There are
some in this world that are truly, truly blessed. This world is consumed with the
things of this world, the treasures and the pleasures of the flesh. We see it in the Word of God.
We see it when we look out into the world. It's very evident.
And what men consider to be the blessing is really having more
of the things that this world has to offer. Our Lord talks
about it in Matthew chapter 25. What shall we eat? Or what shall
we drink? Or what shall we put on? Religion says to them that God
loves them and wants them to be blessed. He wants and desires
the best for them. He has a blessing plan. That's actually a term that I
took from a website. God has a blessing plan for you. That sounds good, doesn't it?
A blessing plan. A design for your life. And what
he wants is he wants you to be healthy and he wants you to be
prosperous. He wants you to be successful.
He wants you to be rich. He just needs you to make a decision. He just needs you to accept him
and to follow him. Allow Him to bless you. He needs you to plant the seed
in order to enjoy the harvest. Again, that was directly taken
from another website. Plant the seed. All you gotta
do, God wants to give you the harvest. All you gotta do is
just plant that seed. Write that check, send it on
in. That seed will be planted. God's gonna bless you. And that's
exactly what it is. It's exactly what it was, it
was a sales tactic. And they weren't just asking for one check,
they were actually asking for three. But that's religion. That's how
you're gonna be blessed of God. You gotta plant the seed so you
can enjoy the harvest. Make the decision to receive
the blessing. Name and acclaim it. Release
and surrender your life to God and allow him to bless you. And
they go about, religion does, the religion of this world, establishing
their own righteousness based upon the standard of the religion.
So whatever their standard is of righteousness, you do this
and this and this and then you meet that standard and you're
righteous and God will bless you for that. And I guess depending
upon what religion you're in just depends upon what that standard
of righteousness is, right? They go about boasting of their
good works, their accomplishments, decisions, actions, their godly
living and how deserving they are of the blessings of God.
It's, you know, the more people get, it's like the more they
got to like just demonstrate it, right? They got to show it.
I'm just so blessed. God has done this and this and
this because I've done this and that or whatever the case may
be. And again, most of it all revolves around their power,
their position, or their wealth, or what it is that they've gained,
or what it is that they have. That's how they view their blessings.
And most religion looks at it as where the bigger the house,
the nicer the car, the more blessed you are. And when you view religion with
the eyes of the flesh, when you consider the carnal things, And
we are carnal creatures, right? I mean, when you consider those
things, earthly speaking, there's actually a lot that makes religion
very attractive. I mean, it's just part of our
nature. I mean, we just, we want those
things. We want nice things. Religion appeals to the flesh.
It appeals to the senses in the carnal man, which is why it's
so popular. That's why it's, Religion knows exactly what it's
doing. They know exactly who we are,
they know what we are, and they know exactly how to pull us in
and entangle us into their deception and their lies. I believe that they know our
nature really, really well. And religion is very good at
doing what it does. of causing people to follow them
down that wide path, crying out, peace, peace, when
there is no peace, declaring that they're leading people to
the gates of heaven, and they're walking directly through the
gates of hell. And they're very good at it.
It's why our Lord says unto us in so many places, beware of
false prophets in what? In sheep's clothing. In sheep's clothing. You know,
Satan, Satan was described as a serpent. but he's also described as an
angel of light. He was a serpent in that picture, in that illustration. You know, Satan doesn't come
or Satan doesn't operate as this world has him depicted and pictured
with horns and some fork. The churches of this world are
described as synagogues of Satan, and you know what they do? They
use this very book at times, not always, but they proclaim
to use this very book, the word of truth, the word of God, and
they use the name Jesus. And they use words like grace
and mercy and blessing and all these other things. But it's foolishness. When you
hear what they say, it's foolishness, it's deception, it's lies. But they're very good at it. And this flesh, which we're just
flesh, it appeals to it. And it can deceive many. David,
in Psalm 73, he talks about that. He said, I was envious of the
foolish. David looked out into this world,
David looked at everything that was going on around him, and
he said, I was envious. Envious of the foolish. And he
said, and I saw the prosperity of the wicked, for there's no
bands in their death, but their strength is firm. They are not
in trouble as other men. And most of them, when you look
at religion, they don't look like they're in trouble, right?
It looks like everything's great. Life is grand. And he said, therefore, pride
encompassed them about. as a chain, and that's the reality
of it. The more successful we become,
the richer we become, the more that we increase in certain things,
what happens, generally speaking, we become consumed and compassed
about with pride because it's just our natural tendency to
think that we did this, or we did that, but that's what religion
does. Pride cometh them about. That's
why they talk about their decisions. That's why they talk about their
actions. It's all pride. And violence covers them as a
garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness.
They have more than heart could wish. David said, behold, these are
the ungodly who prosper in the world. They increase in riches.
And he said, verily, I've cleansed my heart in vain. He became envious. He became jealous. And he began
to question his heart and his intentions and his motives and
what he knew to be true. But he said, when I thought to
know this, it was too painful for me until I went into the
sanctuary of God and I understood their end. God causes to know their end. If you want to know the blessing
of God, if you want to know who the blessed man is, you must
look to the word of God. The prosperity of false religion
is deceptions. They have their grand and extravagant
buildings, their huge congregations. They have their ministries, their
outreach programs. They have all these things, summer
camps, and they're entertaining. They're
powerful, they're influential. How many connections are made
in churches? How much socialization is made
in churches? How much business is done in
churches? Whether you're contrary to the
word of God, They cry out, peace, peace, when there is no peace.
They are described in the word of God as clouds that carry no
water. When you see a cloud, a dark
cloud, you think, oh, here comes the rain. But they're clouds
that have no water. There's no health, there's no
benefit. There's a benefit in rain. The
Lord declares his word is like the rain that falls down to the
earth and causes it to bring forth bud and to grow. They look
like the clouds, it looks like rain, it looks like rain's coming,
but there's no rain. There's no rain, it's just a
cloud. They worship and pray and do all these things unto
a God that cannot sit. They are described as clouds
without water. The prosperity of the wicked,
though perceived to be in blessing, is actually indeed a curse. They
hide and have more than heart could wish, but their end is
destruction and devastation. Their end is hell and eternal
separation from God, not some mansion in heaven with streets
of gold and a great reward for all the good that they have done
in their life. And the Lord said, many, many
will stand before me in that day. Many will stand before me
in that day and say, Lord, have we not done many wonderful works?
Have we not prophesied in thy name? Have we not done this and
done that? And he said, I will declare unto
them, depart from me, ye workers of iniquity. In that day of judgment, there's
only two things that are spoken. The Lord's either gonna look
at some and say, come you blessed of my father, or he's gonna look
at the others and he's gonna say depart. That's the two verdicts
given, come or depart. To whom does he say come? I wanna
know that, to whom does he say come? Because those are the words
that I desire to hear. Our text declares, blessed is
the man whom thou choosest and causes to approach unto thee.
And here is the source, here is the beginning, here is the
reason and the cause of all blessing. This is the foundation of all
blessing right here, what we have in our text. God Almighty,
before the foundation of the world and eternity past, chose
a people unto salvation. God Almighty, before the foundation
of the world and eternity past, chose a people unto salvation. This is clearly and plainly stated
throughout the entire Word of God. Ephesians chapter one says,
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints
we are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace
be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us. with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ. Every spiritual blessing, all
spiritual blessings that God has and can possibly bestow upon
us, He does. He does not withhold anything
from us, and He does so in heavenly places in Christ. Only in Christ
are the blessings of God. Only in Christ. Only in Christ
is the love of God. But how did he do that? He said,
according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world. To what purpose? That we should
be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated
us, having predetermined, predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself. Why did he do that? How did he
do that? Well, it was according to the
good pleasure of his will. He wanted to do it. That's why
he did it. He wanted to do it. He wanted
his son to have a bride. He wanted to have children that
he would spend eternity with. And it was to the praise of the
glory of his grace wherein he made us accepted in the beloved,
chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. Peter wrote, Peter,
an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered throughout
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according
to the foreknowledge of God the Father, elect. God chose a people. In the covenant of salvation,
God the Father chose a people and he gave them to his son who
became their surety. And the purpose was the salvation
of the elect and the glory of Christ in the work of salvation.
We did not and we do not choose him. He chose us. The Lord clearly declared, you
have not chosen me, but I've chosen you. It doesn't get any
clearer than that. It doesn't get any simpler than
that. And that one statement alone just completely destroys
the foundation that so much religion has. And that one simple statement
right there, you have not chosen me. But yet religion builds a success
upon choice. It says that you have a free
will, that you can make a choice, that you can choose him, you
can accept him. But yeah, what is that? That's
five words. You've not chosen me. He, God Almighty, according to
his sovereign purpose, according to his wisdom, his decree, his
design, and his will, chose a people. It was according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father, according to the good pleasure of his will,
and it was through the praise of the glory of his grace. There
was nothing in us or done by us that caused us to merit or
deserve or warrant the decision of God to choose us. Why did
God choose a people? We read in the book of Deuteronomy,
it says, it says, for thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy
God, the Lord thy God has chosen thee to be a special people unto
himself. Above all people that are upon
the face of the earth, the Lord did not set his love upon you
nor choose you because you were more in number than any other
people, for you were the fewest of all people, but because the
Lord loved you. If you're chosen of God unto
salvation in Christ, why did He do that? Because He loved
you. Why did He love you? I don't know. I don't know. I don't have an answer
for that. But my answer for you is this,
but because God loved you. And I just sit down and I rest
and I stand in that alone. Because it wasn't anything in
you that caused God to love you. If you're loved of God, there's
nothing in you that caused that. There's nothing in you that deserved
that. What you deserve, the word of
God's very clear on what we deserve. If you wanna talk about what
we deserve, that's very clear. That's very plainly stated. The
wages of sin is death. And that's what we are. We are
sinners and we've sinned against God. But blessed is a man whom
God chose. Why did he chose? Because he
loved you. And like I said, I don't know why, but I'm thankful. I'm happy. Paul talks about the children
not being yet born, neither having done good or evil. that the purpose
of God according to election might stand, not of works, but
of him that calleth. It was said unto her, the elder
shall serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob have I loved,
and Esau have I hated, before Jacob and Esau were ever born.
before they had ever done anything, before they ever had any thought,
before they even took that first breath of life upon birth. God Almighty said, I loved one
and I hate the other. He said unto Moses, I'll have
mercy on whom I'll have mercy. I'll have compassion on whom
I will have compassion. Do we understand that God is
sovereign? He said, I'm gonna have mercy
on this one, and I'm gonna love this one, and I'm gonna hate
this one. And this plain and simple truth
that God is sovereign and the salvation of a sinner is hated
and despised and rejected by man. When you begin to preach,
when you begin to declare, when you begin to speak of God, the true God, not the God of
this religion, but the God of this book, the God who sits on
the, there's a throne. There is a throne of heaven.
We don't see it with these eyes. We have very little and limited
knowledge and understanding regarding that, but there is a throne,
and there is one who sits upon that throne, and he does as he
will, when he will, with whom he will, and there is nothing
that man can say. God is absolutely sovereign,
and man by nature hates this. It attacks our pride and love
of self. And that's what we are completely
filled with by nature. We are filled with pride and
love of ourself. That is contrary to man's view,
his thoughts and determinations of who and what he is, and it
causes man to look to, come to, and bow before God as a beggar
of mercy and grace for salvation. That's not something that man
likes by nature. That's not something that we
like by nature, is to be a beggar. I mean, just even in the simplest
terms or even in the simplest examples, that's offensive to
us. To be called a beggar? No, I'm
not a beggar, I work hard. I do this, I do that. I get up
in the morning and I'm not a beggar. It's offensive, isn't it? Why? Because of who we think
we actually are. But we're not who we think we
are, that's the problem. I'm not who I think I am by nature. See, it makes us, it makes us helpless. It makes
us poor and it makes us needy. It makes us incapable of doing
anything for ourselves. And that just kinda like flies
in the face of everything that man says. If you can dream it,
you can dream it, you can be it. All you gotta do is just
go out there and work hard and do this and do that. And look,
listen, yeah, go out there and work hard. Have dreams. I hope my kids have dreams. I
hope they have dreams of success and happiness and everything
else. But understand this, every gift,
everything that we have comes from the hand of God. You may have dreams, you may
have goals, you may have aspirations. I can tell you this from experience,
in two minutes, all of those can be gone. They can all be gone just like
that. In the blink of an eye, in a
moment, your whole entire life can be changed and turned upside
down. Your health can be taken away
from you, your strength can be taken away from you, your ability
can be taken away from you, and what do you have then? What are
you then? We're not who we think we are.
And everything that we have, everything that we are, is given
unto us by God Almighty graciously, compassionately, and everything
that we need to be, everything that by the grace of God we desire
and want to be is in Him. That's all I want. I just want to be in Him. And
if I have Him, then I have everything. If I have Him, you know, this world seeks after like wisdom
and enlightenment and an understanding and all these things, right?
Paul talks about that. The Greeks seek after wisdom
and everything else, but it's only in Him, Are we made
righteous and wise and understanding and knowledgeable? It's only
in Him. That's what He is unto us. He
is unto us of Him. Are you in Christ Jesus who is
made unto us wisdom and righteousness and understanding? I don't go out into the world seeking
all these things. I look to Him. And in Him, I
find everything that I need and that I desire. It's not in this
world. This world is going to burn one
day. Everything in this world, the
former things are going to be done. They're going to be gone.
All things are going to be made new. But in Him, He is everlasting. He never changes. And Paul talks about what man
says. He says, thou wilt then say unto
me, why doth he yet find fault? Who's resisted his will? Man
has all these excuses. Man has all these rebuttals to
God. But Paul says it so well. He
says, nay, O man, who art thou that replies against God? Who
do we think we are? God can't violate my will. God doesn't know, God doesn't
see. I can get away with this, I can
do that. Who art thou? Shall the thing
form, that's what you are, that's what I am, that's what all humanity
is, is a thing formed. And you know what we're formed
out of? Dust, dirt. That's all we are. We think we're
something. No, you're just dirt. You're just a thing formed. That's
all you are. And one of these days, you're gonna return to
dust. One of these days, that body, this body that we love,
that we love to, you know, decorate and make look good, this body
that we think is gonna, you know, earthly speaking for some reason,
just kind of live forever, it ain't nothing but dirt. And one day they're just gonna
put you in a grave and you're gonna return to dirt. But I will
tell you this, Ecclesiastes says that you return to dust, but
the spirit that dwells within you is gonna return to God that
made it. And after these eyes close in
this world, after we take our last breath, They're gonna be opened up in
eternity and we're gonna stand before God Almighty and we're
gonna be judged for every thought, every action, every word, every
deed, every intention, every desire, everything. The books
will be opened up. Salvation is by grace through
faith. It's not of him that willeth. It's not according to your will.
It's not of him that runneth. It's not according to what you
do. It's of God. Would God teach us that? Would
God reveal that unto us? Because by nature, we don't know
it, and we don't understand it, and we can't unless God, who
commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shines that
truth in our hearts, and that's in the face of Christ Jesus. Paul said, you hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sins, and he describes who we
are. We're just, we're children of wrath, even as others. There's
no difference between us and the rest of this world. But God, but God, who is rich
in mercy, why? For his great love with where
he loved us, he saved us. He saved us and he called us.
He put us in his Son who loved us and died for us and redeemed
us, but God, but God, And he said, by grace are you saved
through faith and not out of yourselves. Man by nature hates God and is
enmity with God. David said, why do the heathen
rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth
set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against
the Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us break their bands
asunder and cast away their cords from us. But he that sitteth
in the heaven shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision.
They consult to cast him down. That's man right there. The Lord
Jesus Christ, we read, I believe it's in the book of Luke, says
they were delivered into the will of the people. And what
was their will? They clearly and plainly declared what their
will was, crucify him, kill him. We don't want anything to do
with this man. That's your will. That's my will by nature. That's
our will. and the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ is upon our hands. We said those words. And before the Lord revealed
them to us, we woke up every morning saying those words in
our hearts and in our minds. All right, let's look at the
second part and I'll try and I know I'm not going to get through
all of this, but I want to look at a couple things. Let's look
now at the second part. He said, those whom God has chosen,
He calls us to approach unto Himself. How does a vile, corrupt,
and depraved sinner approach the holy God? The holy God who
is of pure eyes and to behold evil. The holy God whose throne
we read that justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne.
How do we as a sinner approach unto God? How does a man come
unto him? The Lord declared that no man
can come unto the Father except the Father draw him, except it
were given to him of the Father. The Lord loves us and He calls
us and He makes us willing in that day, but He has to make
us willing because we will not come to Him by nature. He does
have to draw us. He has to draw us. And those whom God the Father
has chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, all
of them will come to him. All of them will approach unto
him. He said, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and
him that cometh to me I'll in no wise cast out. all those whom
God the Father chose in Christ will come to Him. Paul said,
we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved
of the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you
to salvation through sanctification and the belief of the truth,
whereunto He called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the
glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. So how do we approach unto Him?
How does that happen? How is that accomplished? That's
accomplished by the gospel. That's accomplished by the call
of God, whom the Lord has chosen, he's going to call. And how does
he do that? By what we're doing right now,
by the preaching of the gospel. That's how God calls sinners.
That's how God causes sinners to approach unto himself. And
the message of the gospel has come to Christ. Are you thirsty?
Do you hunger and thirst after righteousness? Then come to Christ.
Are you poor and needy? Then come to Christ. Are you
helpless? Come to Christ. Are you a sinner
in need of a Savior? Come to Him. And God has revealed
in His word the character of those whom He calls. And when
we see the character of those whom He calls, we see actually
the character of those whom He chose. Paul said, you see your
calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh,
not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen
the foolish things of this world. Why? To confound the wise. And God has chosen the weak things
of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and
the base things of the world, and the things which are despised
as God chosen. Yea, the things which are not.
Why? To bring to naught the things that are. Why? That no flesh
should glory in his sight. No flesh is going to glory before
the Lord God Almighty when it comes to the salvation of a sinner. Because all glory and honor and
praise belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. He accomplished salvation. He's the one who lived on this
earth as a representative of the people of God and establishing
a righteousness for them. The righteousness. Not just a
righteousness, the righteousness. Righteousness. He's the one who
suffered on the cross as a substitute of those people whom he loved,
whom God the Father chose in him, forsaken of the Father and
enduring all the wrath and judgment of God. He's the one that on the third
day was risen for our justification. God declares in his word the
character of those whom he calls, and it sheds lights on whom God
has chosen unto salvation. And it reveals the foolish wisdom
of man. It declares the glorious wisdom
and love of God. It declares his purpose in saving
a sinful people. They were not the wise, not the
mighty and the noble. They were the foolish, the weak,
and the base. It is by the preaching of the
gospel that God saves sinners, that he calls them whom he chose
in Christ into salvation. And how does he do so? He does so by his gospel. He
does so by his gospel. I wanna look at this last part
here and just spend a little bit of time considering this.
In the last part of our verse, it says, blessed is the man whom
thou choosest and causest to approach unto thee that, that. that he may dwell in thy courts.
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of
thy holy temple. The court, the court was an enclosed
area, it was an open area, but it was an enclosed area, it was
uncovered that surrounded the tabernacle and the temple. And there was a gate that one
would enter in and have access into the altar. And the court,
the court was where God was worshiped. Everything inside that court,
when you walked through that gate into the court, remember
it was an enclosed area, when you walked inside that gate into
the court, everything inside that court was dedicated unto
the worship and service of God. A house, David talks about a
house. A house is a dwelling place.
A house is where a family lives. It's a home. There have been several messages
where Chris has talked about that, where he's talked about
home. Home. Home is a place of comfort. It's a place of happiness and
joy. It's a place where family gathers
together. It's a place of just peace. This world is a very busy place. There's a lot going on, a lot
of things to do, but sometimes when I'm happiest, Sometimes when I'm happiest is
when I'm just sitting in my living room with my family and watching
some Shark Tank. Watching a movie. Maybe playing
a card game or something like that. It's where I'm comfortable. It's my home. I'm surrounded
by those that I love the most. This is my home. Right now, right
now I'm at home. I'm surrounded by those that
love me. I'm surrounded by those that
I love, truly love. Not the love that this world
knows, the love that's in Christ. And right now I'm doing that
which makes me happier than anything else in this world. And that's worshiping my Savior
together, all of us. Opening up His word and finding
out that there are actually some in this world that are blessed. And I wanna be one of those,
I want all of us I want every single one, every single person
here this morning, I want them to walk out those doors happy. Happy. The temple was a house of worship,
and the word that indicates the purpose of God in choosing a
people and causing them to approach unto him. God chose a people,
all whom he chose he calls and calls us to approach unto him
and they shall dwell in the court of God, the place dedicated to
the worship of Christ. And that is the place that we
desire to be. Do we desire to be here this
morning? When we walk through that door,
did we walk through with a desire, like a true desire to hear from
him, to worship him? Do we desire to be here this
morning? And we're satisfied because this
is where Christ is. It's not this building. It's
not this location. We're satisfied because this
is where he is. As our brother spoke this morning,
he's with us right now. I know that in my heart. I know he's with us because he
promised. And he keeps his promises. At one point he said, if it were
not so, I'd have told you. And this house is our home. The
desire of the elect is to be with Christ, to love him, to
serve him, to worship him, to be where he is. We'll actually
look at that a little bit tonight by God's grace. You know, John's
two disciples, the Lord, John saw the Lord coming and he said,
behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
And John's two disciples, you know what they did? They left
John and they followed him. And then the Lord turned around
and he asked him this one simple question. He said, what seek
ye? That's one of my favorite passages
in the scriptures. One of my favorite questions,
what seek ye? And their response was, Lord,
where do you dwell? Where is he? That's why heaven
is heaven. Because it's where Christ is. and this covenant of salvation,
the promise of God. He said, I know my thoughts unto
you, thoughts of happiness. You know what this covenant is?
He said, you're gonna be my people. And wherever I am, that's where
you're gonna be. That's the simplicity, you can
take so much of this word, so much of it, and you can narrow
it down to that. I've loved you with an everlasting
love, I've chosen you, I've saved you, and for all eternity, wherever
I am, you're gonna be right there with me, and I'm gonna be right
there with you, and that's never going to change. That's the court of God. In heaven it says there is no
need for the temple. Why? Because Christ is the temple.
The temple and the tabernacle were just pictures given to us
on this earth so we can see them with our eyes or look into the
word of God and know it and understand it, but it's all Him. Christ
is all. There's no need of the sun in
heaven, why? Because Christ is a light. He
came unto us, John, that's part of what John's testimony was,
that he was a light of the world, and he's a light of eternity.
And we're gonna spend eternity in
the courts of God. A city with walls. And we're
gonna be hedged about for all eternity, and we're just gonna
be able to worship him in truth, in honesty, as he deserves, as
we desire to. I desire to worship him in truth.
I'm glad that I'm here today. I'm glad that God has given me
a message to preach. I'm glad that we're sitting here
and we're listening and we're hearing and the word of God has
opened up. But there is so much sin mixed in everything that
we've done today and everything that's been done. There's been
so much sin mixed in it. But one day there's not gonna
be any more sin. It's gonna be perfect. And that's
what I desire. I desire to worship him in truth
and in honesty with a clean heart and a pure mind and a pure spirit. David says, surely goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I'm gonna
dwell in the house of the Lord for how long? Forever. He said in Psalm 27 verse four,
one thing, you look through the word of God and you see where
it talks about one thing, there's several of them. But David said
this, he said, one thing have I desired of the Lord, and that's
what I'm gonna seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the
Lord all the days of my life. to behold the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in His temple. Is that our desire this morning?
Is that our desire, our heart's desire? To dwell in the court
of God, to be in His temple, to be in His tabernacle, where
that mercy seat is, where it talks about the presence of the
Lord was there. That's the house of worship,
right? I mean, that's here today. The presence of the Lord is here.
David said, blessed are they that dwell in thy house. They
shall still be praising thee. When King Sheba went to go see
Solomon, she got to see the grandness
of all that Solomon had, his kingdom, his riches, his wealth.
And she got to sit in and talk to Solomon and hear of his wisdom
and hear the words that he spoke. And she looked at Solomon and
she said, happy are thy men, happy are thy servants that dwell
in thy house and hear of thy wisdom. It's at us this morning as we
sit When we hear a word from God,
it's... I got some notes here. I got some points. I got references I can turn to
and I can look at this to show this, or I can look at that to
show that. This ain't got nothing to do
with me. Ain't got nothing to do with me. Nobody's here hearing from me. I'm just, I'm just a mouthpiece, that's
all I am. This is actually a message from
God this morning. And when I stood up here, that's
what I prayed for. That was my hope. That was my desire. Not to stand here and preach. I'm just dust. I'm just a vessel. But are we in the courts of God
with a desire to worship Him and to hear from Him? David said, the righteous shall
flourish like the palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in
Lebanon. Those that be planted in the
house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. Planted. Not a tree that just
happened to spring up, all right? When you plant a garden, I don't
know, Chrissy, she's planted the garden for years and she'll
go out there and all of a sudden there's this plant that popped
up that she didn't plant. Don't even know where it came
from. What are they called, rogue? That's not what this is. It's
not what this is. This isn't just something that
popped up. This is something that was planted. There was a process that took
place. There was a hole that was dug. There was a seed that
was planted and covered and watered and cared for. And when that first bud began to
pop out of the ground, it was protected. It was hedged about. That's us. a tree planted by God Almighty,
where? In his court. Blessed, blessed
is the man whom thou choosest and causes to approach unto thee
for this purpose, that he may dwell in thy courts. And we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house,
and there's nothing else that will satisfy us. There's some things out there
that'll satisfy the flesh. There's a whole world out there
full of them. What satisfies the spirit? Because remember, that is what
we are. We have this body. But inside there is a spirit. His life is temporary. But the
spirit does live forever. Spirit never dies. The court of God is our home,
and that is where we desire to dwell. There are some who are
blessed in this world, chosen of God the Father and Christ
into salvation and called to approach unto him who shall dwell
in the court of God forever. Thanks be unto God for his blessing.
Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. Thanks be unto God for
his son, And by the grace of God, I pray
all of us here will one day be worshiping Him in spirit and
in truth together in that court of heaven. Let's pray.