Psalm 48

let's go ahead and give this some time to get everywhere online we made it back to iowa from ohio so thankful to the lord for safe travels as we got moving so we should be more consistent with getting here on time each night so or each morning sorry so uh so hopefully this will be more consistent at 9 00 a.m that's when i try to go live each day is normally at 9 00 am so let's wait for this to get on facebook almost there so close so close psalm 48 why don't we go ahead and uh pray we'll get into god word god's word thank you so much for joining me tonight for coffee and devotions that's where every day we get together we get into god's word and we grow and our love for the lord together and this year 2021 we'll make it through all the wisdom literature tonight we're in psalm 48 so let's pray and we'll get into god's word we thank you so much lord for this day we thank you for your love for your people we thank you for your presence with your people and we pray father now that as we get into your word you would have us with ears to hear and that you would prepare our hearts and be working in us now to believe in jesus name amen all right let's go ahead and open up our bibles to psalm 48. and here we go a song a psalm of the sons of quran great as the lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our god in his holy mountain beautiful in elevation the joy of the whole earth is mount zion on the sides of the north the city of the great king god is in her palaces he is known as her refuge for behold the kings assembled they passed by together they saw it and so they marveled they were troubled they hastened away fear took quote of them there and pain as of a woman in birth pangs and when you break the ships of tarshish with us with an east wind as we have heard so we have seen in the city of the lord of hosts in the city of our god god will establish it forever we have thought o god on your loving kindnesses in the midst of your temple according to your holy name o god so is your praise to the ends of the earth your right hand is full of righteousness like mount zion rejoice let the daughters of judah be glad because of your judgments walk about zion and go all around her count her towers mark her well her bulwarks consider her palaces that you may tell it to the generations following for this is god our god forever and ever he will be our guide even to death well what a beautiful passage we have for us we need to kind of ask ourselves what is this about right we feel maybe a little bit removed from this passage why well unless you're joining me from jerusalem you don't don't live in jerusalem you probably don't live in modern day israel and even if you do live in modern day israel you might go up to jerusalem and there you're not going to find the temple there you'll find the temple mount but the temple is not standing anymore but when the sons of korah are riding these are the musicians of the temple the beautiful temple of of solomon's era is there and this is the the priests who are singing this psalm right crying out about how beautiful the temple is look at the city god is so pleased in this city why because god was dwelling there now we know that the temple is gone we know that that's a sign of god's judgment we know that jesus prophesied that this was going to happen and indeed the romans tore down the temple in 67 a.d or 69 a.d but the question is has god then forsaken his people is he still our comfort is he still our peaceful indeed he is right uh it's it's amazing what the new testament says in ephesians chapter 4 it says that the church is the temple of god that we are living stones built one upon another with jesus as the cornerstone and the apostles and the prophets and the evangelists as the foundation stones it's the church now this is why paul is able to say right he's able to say do you not know that you are the temple of the living god and that the spirit of god lives in you therefore glorify god with your body the reality is now that god is even closer to us now than he ever was in the temple and that we are closer to him we each and every one of us are all priests why because we are priests because we are in christ and christ dwells in the holy of holies not made with human hands but that which is in heaven and he mediates for us and so god is still with his people god still loves his people and we can sing this psalm with even more power than the sons of korah could and so these beautiful verses here the city of the city of the great king god is in her palaces he is known as her refuge we have thought oh god on your loving kindnesses in the midst of your temple for this is god our god forever and ever he will be our guide even to death how beautiful is that that god is our guide even to death even as we go to the grave we can remember the lord's love and kindness that even in that valley of the shadow of death our shepherd is with us and as rod and his staff they comfort us but let's go ahead and pray father we thank you so much that you love your people so much so that you have made a temple not made with human hands but father you have come and dwelt with us lord we pray that we would look to your love and kindness and that we would love you with all of our hearts father fill us and let us cling to you to our dying breaths in jesus name amen may lord bless you today may he give you a great night's sleep and i'll see you tomorrow morning bye