We come this morning to the final sermon in a series of twelve sermons that we have had on the Bible’s teaching on the Church. And since the previous eleven sermons have been taken from the New Testament Scriptures, you may well be entitled to answers to two questions. Question number one: What does the title of this morning’s sermon mean? And question number two: What does it have to do with the 48^th Psalm?

What does the title of our sermon today mean (this people, this place, this time)? We live in an age of very fast travel, and the information era. We visit other churches easily. We watch churches on our television sets. Some of us login to other church websites to see what they are doing there. And either the result is that we want to be like another church, or somebody else wants us to be like another church, or even another church wants us to be like that other church. When the truth of the Scriptures is essentially this: that God wants us to be this church, because we can’t be any other church.

We are this people, in this place, at this time. We are this people, brought together in the providence of God, with all of our strengths and our weaknesses, all of our resources and our challenges, all of our idiosyncrasies and our peculiarities, all of our "not getting on with one another," and our deep fellowship with the saints of God! We are this people. And it is in fact the one distinguishing feature of our Christian lives. Our city, our nation, our world, abounds in Christian believers – but not Christian believers who assemble in this place, with these people, on this regular basis! In that sense God makes every church absolutely unique, and it would be folly for every church to want to be like any other, or indeed every other, church. God calls us to be this church.

And He calls us to this place. We are not in the District of Columbia; we are not in Columbia, Missouri. We are in Columbia, South Carolina. And God again in His providence has brought us together here. This is a distinctive kind of environment. It is not a rural environment; it is not the environment of a major world metropolis. It is the environment of Columbia, South Carolina. Centre of the state, capital of the state, surrounded by places of business and legislation and academic learning, and people going about their ordinary business in this place. We are this people in this place! Not those people in that place. Not even those people in that other church, but this people in this church. This place!

And we are so at this time – the year of grace 2006. We are not living in the 19^th century; we are not even living in the 20^th century. We are not living in the 17^th or the 13^th or the 1^st century. But we are living in this place, as this people, in this time! We might have preferred that things were different in this time, but God has not called us to face the difficulties of past times or future times; He has called us to bring the gospel in this time. We are this people, in this place, in this time. And our challenge is to find the ways in which the principles of Scripture apply to this people, in this place, in this time. And the great question really for us is simply: can we do it? Can we take the principles of Scripture for this people, in this place, and this time? And just as important: will we do it? Are we prepared to do it?

And that is why this great 48^th Psalm seems to me to be such a help to us. It is a Psalm of the sons of Korah, who are reflecting on the significance of Jerusalem. And as we know from the New Testament Scriptures, the New Testament Scriptures see all the destiny that Jerusalem had fulfilled once and for all in the coming and the dying and the rising and the ascending of our Lord Jesus Christ. Before that the invitation was to come to Jerusalem. Thereafter the command was to go away from Jerusalem – to take what had been revealed in Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. So that Jerusalem no longer has the significance in God’s economy that it formerly had. Jesus Christ and His people have that significance. And the destiny of Jerusalem is fulfilled then in the building of the Church of Jesus Christ. Which is of course why our Lord says to His disciples in the Sermon on the Mount – no longer Jerusalem the great city of God set on a hill – “You are the city that is set on the hill. You are to be the light of the world.”

And so if we are to be in miniature this people, this place, this time – the city set on a hill – what can we learn about this city in which we dwell from the great principles of the 48^th Psalm? Well, the Psalmist here reflects on several features of Jerusalem’s significance.

The Location of God’s Church⤒🔗

The first of course is its particular location. “Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God! His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation, the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King. Within her citadels God has made Himself known as a fortress.” What is it that realtors say? “Location, location, location!” And it is interesting that while there are some geographical or topographical elements in this description, the Psalmist’s description actually goes way beyond anything that the eyes could see. Just as, for example, in the great 46^th Psalm in vs. 4 we are told “there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.” But there is no great river which runs through the city of Jerusalem. He is seeing the location of the city not simply in terms of where it sits geographically, but where it sits in his heart. And he is describing Jerusalem in terms of his affection for its significance far more than his description of its geographical power.

For example, he comes on to say in vs. 4, when the kings assembled and saw Jerusalem, they were astounded to panic; they took to flight. He is not speaking about them being overwhelmed by the vision of Jerusalem’s magnificence – it was a tiny place in those days! – but being overwhelmed by the sense of the power of the people’s faith and the majesty of the presence of God. It is not only the specific location it has in world geography (although that surely over the years has been mighty significant), but the place it has in his affection. Because here, he says (vs. 3), God has made Himself wonderfully known. And later on in vs. 9, God’s love for His people has been wonderfully experienced: “We have thought on your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of your temple.”

I remember an elder in another church that I was visiting saying to me – as we stood at the front of the church and looked out over the people he turned to me and he said with a little smile, “Don’t you think this is the greatest church in the world?” And I immediately thought to myself, “Well actually, no I don’t think it is. I think the church I belong to is the greatest church in the world!” But that is why I appreciated what he said. His affection for the people of God in this place at this time was such that he felt this was the only place he ever wanted to belong to. And that was why (as the sons of Korah say) they want to say, “Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.” “We love the place, O God” we sing. “We love the people, O God, with all their frailties and peculiarities.” And so the location in my heart of this fellowship is actually far more significant than anything I might see with my visible eyes, because that is what God is going to use to show His glory!

And you notice the effect of this (when the people of God have this affection for their church in its location in their hearts): the first thing is that the place draws forth admiration, and then it draws out illumination. I think you know that that is so significant for us as a church fellowship. You remember how it was in the Acts of the Apostles? When the early Christians actually much of the time were meeting in the temple, meeting in Jerusalem, and also from house to house. The early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles are punctuated by comments on the admiration for the Christians that the Jerusalem community began to feel! There was something about this community and the location the church of Jesus Christ had in the affections of its members that drew forth admiration, even from those who were opposed to its message. They would say things like, “You can’t help admiring what is going on there; there is something glorious going on there.” And just as in this Psalm, so in the Acts of the Apostles: as much as anything else in the context of the teaching of the gospel, it was the fact that the church was so worthy of admiration that brought men and women to the experience of the illumination of what it was that lay at the church’s heart.

My dear friends, buildings (much as we prize them) can never do this. You can go to the great cathedrals of Europe and you are as likely to say, “What an amazing architect” or “What fine craftsmen” as you are to say, “O praise be to God for the wonders He has wrought.” But where there is a living fellowship of God’s people, utterly committed to Christ and utterly committed to one another, then the kind of admiration that leads to illumination of the meaning of the gospel will be found. And so he speaks about the location of His church.

The Protection of God’s Church←⤒🔗

In the second place he speaks about the protection of His church. Vs. 8: “The city of our God, which God will establish forever.” Earlier in vs. 3: “Within her citadels God has made Himself known as a fortress.” “A mighty fortress is our God.” Now, why is this so important to Him? Because He is not surprised (as he says in vs. 4-8) that where the city of God – the church of God – is worthy of admiration because of the quality of its life of grace, it will inevitably draw forth opposition. Oh my friends, I wish we could get this into our minds and into our hearts, so that we wouldn’t be surprised or frightened or want to draw back when there is opposition. Of course there will be opposition to the gospel!

Interestingly, this Psalm echoes the 2^nd Psalm: “The Kings of the earth combining together.” The very words that Simon Peter quotes were fulfilled in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ in Jerusalem. It is all part of the one bundle of life. The city of God was attacked because there were forces set against God. The Son of God was attacked because there were forces set against God. And when we belong to the city of God and love the Son of God, then we must be never ever be surprised (sometimes yes we will be surprised where the attacks come from) that there is opposition. And if you don’t understand that when the church advances the gospel it meets with opposition, you don’t yet understand the gospel. The gospel draws admiration, but the gospel also draws opposition. And yet says the Psalmist: “God is our fortress.” Yet says our Lord Jesus Christ: “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”

Now that raises for me a most serious question: Why then have the gates of Hades prevailed against the church in Europe? Why, when I was a little boy I was surrounded by ten well-attended churches, and in that same area now with the same population there may be two poorly-attended churches? Why is that the case? And why, when you visit Europe, do you come back lamenting the spiritual state of Europe? Because God defends His church through the faith of His people! The promises of God for His people are promises to be received by faith. And what happened in Europe, among other things, was that the church began to live by sight. And what were the causes? Well, the Old Testament is full of the causes that bring church decline like that. The Book of Revelation, in those letters of Jesus to the churches, is full of the things that bring such church decline. It is not that we did not know what would happen.

For example, in Ephesus: when we possessed the truth without the truth transforming our lives. When we have orthodoxy without vibrancy. When we have the truth without commitment in love to Christ. Thyatira: when we engage in much activity but are careless about personal sanctity! Sardis: when we have a reputation without having the reality. Laodicea: when we have material prosperity but lukewarm spiritual life. That is what happened in the church in Europe. Many people say to me, “Could it happen here?” My friends, it is already happening here! It is already happening here! And that is why at the end of the Psalm the Psalmist bids his companions to walk about Zion, to go around her, to number her towers, consider well her ramparts, and go through her citadels. What is that all about? It is saying, “Make sure that things are in working order! Make sure that the city is capable of defending itself against attacks. Make sure” (this is the message for us!) “that there is not only orthodoxy, but spiritual vibrancy.”

And you see, that comes only when the empty hands of faith reach out to the Lord Jesus Christ and say, “Fill us with your grace, Lord Jesus. Fill us with Your power. Fill us with Your love for the lost. Fill us with a desire to sing Your worthiness and to adore You, and to give ourselves without reservation to You.” And wherever that is lacking, the seeds of the church’s death are still present in us! So he speaks not only about its location; he speaks about its need for protection.

The Expansion of God’s Church←⤒🔗

And thirdly, he speaks about its anticipated expansion. He says, in vs. 10-14, that he anticipates the message of God will expand in different ways. For example in vs. 13: that it will expand into the next generation. And in vs. 11: that it will expand to what he calls the “daughters of Jerusalem.” “Let Mount Zion be glad.” When the churches rejoice, then the daughters of Judah rejoice. What are the daughters of Judah? They are the little villages scattered around Jerusalem. And he is really saying: when the church of God is strong at the center of Jerusalem, then the little churches around where people meet will be strengthened and encouraged. And then he even dares to believe that this message will extend to the ends of the earth. “As Your name, O God, so Your praise reaches to the ends of the earth.”

It is so strikingly like the mission statement of our own congregation, isn’t it?

In keeping with the Great Commission, First Presbyterian Church of Columbia aspires to be a dynamic Christian community” (dynamic Christian community!) “within the heart of South Carolina, centered in the worship of God and bearing witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord. As Christ’s disciples we strive to build vibrant lives, strong families,” (the next generation) “and a fellowship in which members care for and love one another and together seek the well-being of our city, state, and the world. By the power of the Holy Spirit we seek to develop a vital preaching and teaching ministry, aimed at drawing men and women to Christ; healing, comforting and nurturing them in faith; equipping them for service, and deploying them effectively into all walks of life.

It is magnificent, absolutely magnificent; wonderfully true to Scripture. So as we end this series on the Church, we need to walk around our Zion to number her towers, consider well her ramparts, and go through her citadel, that we may tell the next generation that this is God, our God, forever and ever. He will guide us forever. Is this the kind of church we want the Lord to make us? As this people, in this place, at this time.