We continue looking at Solomon and the building of the temple in Jerusalem, and now the temple has been built and it's been filled with its stuff, and we read what happens next after that. First Kings, chapter 8, beginning in verse 1, this is God's Word, eternal truth. When King Solomon summoned the news presence after Jerusalem, the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes, and the chiefs of the Israelite families, to bring up the ark of the Lord's covenant from Zion, the city of David. All the men of Israel came together to King Solomon at the time of the festival in the month of Estanine in the seventh month. Parents are reading, give a response of thankfulness, it's printed for you in your bulletin, the Word of the Lord. Thanks indeed. Let's pray. Sometimes you're in a place you don't want to be, or you're in a place that's not really your home. I experienced this when I was in fifth grade, and my parents had grown up in Ohio, but I had been born in upstate New York, and so all I knew in terms of living and having a home was upstate New York, but my parents, my dad had the opportunity to take a job back in Ohio, and so he considered that, and he did ask us kids, what do you think about moving to Ohio? Now we had been there because we had visited all our relatives who were all there, and so we said, sure. But for us, it was just a new thing, but for my mom and dad, it was getting back to what was normal, and for them what was home. While they enjoyed their time up there, sometimes we're in a place we don't want to be at all. Sometimes we're in a place that's difficult for us. In the church, we had a family at the very beginning of the church, some of you know Darren Karen, and we've been seeing people being contacted with them, and they're very supportive of us, and great folks, and they were here with their two, and then there's three kids, but they were from Iowa, and so they'd have these trips that even exceeded the trips of the Patterson at Christmas time, and took, I don't know how many, you know, somewhere in the upper teens, probably, to get there, to get home, and Dan worked for a caterpillar here. But then they got the opportunity to go to the Motherland of Caterpillar, which is Peoria, Illinois, at much closer to Morton, much closer to Iowa, and it was a job promotion as well, Dan being a very competitive person, and so they got to go home. Because while they enjoyed their time here, and they enjoyed their time in the church, and Dan was one of our, the first men we ordained as an elder, he's in that first group. Karen taught Sunday school, so to Dan, you see still see Dan's picture up here, and our welcome slide, teaching a little Patterson, I think Jennifer might be in that slide, along with Emily, Terpstra, but for them, they really wanted to be closer to home, and so it was a great opportunity for them. For people today, we may be looking back, if you're my age, or 10 years younger, you may look back to the 70s, or the 80s, or the 90s, or even early 2000s, and say, boy, that was a much better world. That was a much better time in the United States. Relations were better, classrooms were better, if you grew up in the 70s, if you spoke in class, you were threatened with going to the principal, and you just may have. I mean, once, and now, how many loads of people would love to be teachers in the schools who don't do it because of all the discipline problems coming out of our homes? And again, when I was an elementary school kid, I knew one kid whose parents were divorced, and that was weird. We didn't treat them badly, but we thought, so you don't have one of your parents in your home. Remember going to that home, and just how odd that was, you know, and now that's just so commonplace, and so we're kind of in a place now, that no one wants to be here. And even people who have gone through all that the hardship of divorce, they don't want to be there. They're not like, oh, I'm so glad that happened, that's what it is. So we can be in a place we don't want to be that way. But as Christians, this is true all the more for us. We're in a place that we endure this life, this or this. But it's not a place we really ultimately want to be. It really is a place we endure. You've heard me say before, those who suffer depression are the ones who are looking honestly at what this world is like. Those of us who aren't depressed, and I've been in depression, those of us who aren't depressed at least right now are doing a good job, ignoring lots of bad stuff, right? That's the secret to survival, is ignoring a lot of bad stuff, but there's more to it than that. And we'll talk about this this morning with the things that get brought out in these two little verses to guess what, a group that was in a place they did not want to be. A group of kings, first kings and second kings was written probably around 560, 550, 550 to 550, and all gods people were in exile in Babylon. They read these things in these two verses, and they went, oh, boy, if we could be there. If I could have been there, not just for the nostalgia to say, I would have loved to fight in the George Washington's army. Not just that nostalgia, but actually their condition. We don't think much about all the gods people were in exile, but that was emotionally excruciating for them to live and defeat day after day, to live away from your home. You had an inheritance back in the promised land, but other people were living in and enjoying while you were somewhere else and you did not have the freedom to go back. They were in a place they didn't want to be. And in this passage, the writer of first kings writes to these people who were in a place they didn't want to be, he brings up some things that helped them, that orient their minds to how they should be thinking as they're living in an exile, away from their true home. And he gives them some things that helped them, that's the saying of them, that helped them get through this life of difficulty. So yeah, I'd like to fill up once in an outline, you're welcome to do that now. There are four major things that are in these two verses. He's talked about two of them last week, David, and the Ark of the Covenant, and what that meant to gods people. This morning we talk about two other things. We talk about Jerusalem, and we talk about the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Tents. But number one is we start out here. God wants us to have an affection for Jerusalem, that's your point one. We have an affection for Jerusalem. Now A, here, what this meant in Old Testament times and what this meant to those who read this book originally, those who were sitting in exile, those who were living in a place they didn't want to live in. What does this mean for them? Jerusalem, were they to have an affection for it or were they just to leave it behind and to curse it and say we've got to defeat it there, but God says in contrast and he brings this up before him. You're glory days, the days that were good for you were when you were in Jerusalem, and you want them to think about that. So he says to them in this first thing here about Old Testament and Old Testament times. Number one, Jerusalem, first of all, with the capital city of God's people, it was the capital city of Israel. So we saw in chapter 7, verses 1 through 12, here in first kings, it's where Solomon sets up his big palace complex, because this is the capital city of God's people, and part of that palace complex was a hall of justice. So God's people would always experience justice as they lived in the promised land. So the first thing Jerusalem meant, the God's people living off in exile, was that Jerusalem was this capital city for them. It was their true capital, not the city of Babylon. They weren't to have affections for the city of Babylon. They were to still have their affection for Jerusalem. So number two, Israel was told to hold this city to Jerusalem and highest in their affections, thinking, that's your blank, thinking on its beauty, which is described for us here in first kings. You have all these descriptions of the beauty that exists in Jerusalem, in the temple and in the palace structure. There to be thinking on its beauty, which was now decimated, it is based with this broken exile. But they were to think back up. Wasn't that beautiful? That's the place. The queen city, the city that was in devotion to God, the city with these amazing structures that the nations, when they traveled by on the travel route, said, wow, Jerusalem. So Israel was to hold this city at highest in their affections, thinking on its beauty and upon God's presence there. God was present there. And so we talked about that last week, and we talked about that a bunch. This is the place where God said he would put his name, or that he would dwell in. And often when God talks about putting his name, some places talking about putting his presence there, in the ancient world that was kind of synonymous, for God that has his name and his presence it meant the same thing. And so God's people were as they sat in their place where they didn't want to be often Babylon, they were to think, and that's where God's presence was, too. This is a beautiful city, but it's a city of great substance because God was there. And some were old enough to know as they received this book, they were old enough to his younger people to have lived in jurors, to have seen, to experience God's presence there. And so David says, and first Chronicles 23, 25, the Lord, the God of Israel, has granted rest to his people and has come to dwell in Jerusalem forever. This is the place of God's dwelling. And look here, go ahead and in your Bibles, go back to Psalm 87. I had just too many verses for Bob to read this morning. So I thought, I'll cheat, I'll just have us read it during the sermon. So Psalm 87, page 42. It used to be in the bulletin, so I still have the whole page number there. Psalm 42 and the Bibles in your seats, Psalm 87. We see in the Psalms, some which come from Israel living in the Promised Land, and some which come from, some of the Psalms come from Israel living in battle off, in exile, speaking about Jerusalem, and how the one who is faithful to God is to think on Jerusalem. So Psalm 87 verses 1 through 3. Look down there, verse 1. Psalm 87 verse 1. God has set his foundation on the Holy Mountain. This is time at the temple, the foundation of the temple. He's set on the mountain which Jerusalem was on top of the mountain. He has set his foundation on the Holy Mountain. The Lord loves the gates of Zion. Zion is basically a synonym for Jerusalem. The Lord loves the gates of Jerusalem or Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. More than any other city in all the Promised Land. In other words, the dwellings of Jacob were all the cities in all the Promised Land. But he loves the gates of Jerusalem or Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Verse 3, this is what we sang this morning. Glorious things are set at you. Oh, city of God. Praise. Oh, city of God. So we'll stop there. Turn now to Psalm 135. Two pages to your right there. So God's people were to think of Jerusalem and say, this is the city of God loves. And that city means more to him than any other city on the earth. And so rightly, glorious things are spoken of Jerusalem. Psalm 135, look down to verse 21, find verse 21. Psalm 135, verse 21. Praise be to the Lord from Zion, from Jerusalem. To him who dwells in Jerusalem. Here's another reminder. God dwells in Jerusalem. He dwells in Jerusalem and from Zion from Jerusalem comes his praise. Praise the Lord. Now, two Psalms over, Psalm 137. Psalm 137, 137, and look at verse 5 and 6. Psalm 137, verse 5, this comes from exile. If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you. If I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy. Okay, so for an old Testament in Israel, I Jerusalem was to be all this. My highest joy to think of is beauty and God's presence there. And you see your outline there of what's in Nehemiah 1. We won't go to that or read that, but if you're familiar with Nehemiah, Nehemiah is still an exile, even though most of God's exiles have returned from Babylon back into the Promised Land. But Nehemiah remains back and he's actually in the Kingdom of Persia and he's downcast because he's considering that the walls of Jerusalem are still not built up. There's still crumbled rocks from a Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed them over a hundred years before. And he's so downcast that the King he serves as cut bears is your wise so downcast, Nehemiah. And Nehemiah says, how can I enjoy when the city I love stands in ruins? So you see the Old Testament fervor that God's people had to work with Jerusalem and this was a good fervor because this is the place where God dwelled. And then number three, what did it mean in the Old Testament? What did Jerusalem mean in the Old Testament? God's people were to look to it when an exile and they were to pray and hope to return there. So Jerusalem is mentioned here in 1st King's 8 verses 1 and 2. It was a little thing for them to remind them as a reminder alarm going off. Remember, you're supposed to pray now that you're an exile that you return there to the promised land. So in your Bibles, they're turned back to 1st King's 8s, our sermon text. And we'll look just over a little bit to 1st King's 9th. And we'll see that these instructions that we pray to return to Jerusalem are right there in Solomon's Prayer, which will be going through shortly. So look at 1st King's, chapter 9, verse 46. No, that can't be right. That must be 10. No, it couldn't be 10 either. Well, let me just find it. I know what I'm looking for. Oh, it's 8. Sorry. It's 8.
So 1st King's 8. 46. This is Solomon's Prayer in just a little bit after what we've read this morning. And he gets this great dedicatory prayer for the temple. And he says this in his prayer. When they, the people of Israel, sin against you, for there's no one who does not sin. See, Paul wasn't the first to say that. There's no one who does not sin. And you become angry with them and give them over to the enemy. Which would become Babylon. Who takes them captive to his own lands. The readers of 1st King's. Far away or near. And if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, Babylon. And repents and plead with you in the land of their compers and say, we have acted wickedly. And if they turn back with all their hearts and soul in the land of their enemies who took them captive. And pray to you toward the land you gave their fathers toward the city you have chosen. And in a temple I have built for your name. Then from heaven you're dwelling place here, their prayer, and their plea and uphold their costs. And forgive your people who have sinned against you. Forgive all the offenses they have committed against you and cause their compers to show them mercy or they are your people and your inheritance. Whom you brought out of Egypt, out of that iron smelting furnace. So this is a command to them as God's people read this and exiled and they read 1st King's. They were to say, oh, we're to be praying not only to be affectionate as we think about Jerusalem of old. A place of God's presence, a place of God's beauty, but we're also to be praying that we can return there. So that's what it meant to be an Old Testament is to relate and to think on Jerusalem. So be so what? It's always have to answer the question, so what? So what? Be what this means today for you and for the church. What this means today for you and the church. Number one, we read about in Hebrews 12, Bob read it for us and we read along. Today, what this means, the heavenly Jerusalem is your capital city because you're a Christian. Because you're part of a whole nation as we saw in our Declaration of the Gospel and called a worship. You, the church, you as a believer are part of a whole nation and Hebrews 12, the heavenly Jerusalem, is your capital city. Now think about that. Use a Christian, have a capital city. And just like Solomon dwelled in the capital city of earthly Jerusalem, the son of David, Jesus, like Solomon, dwells in Jerusalem today. He dwells in the capital city and in the capital city he rules and reigns over all things for the church. From Ephesians 1. And so Jerusalem, no first, heavenly Jerusalem, that exists now where the souls of dead saints are, the souls of dead believers, saints and dead believers, saints and believers, same thing. Where they are, that's your true city. Washington DC is Babylon. For Peter, he called Rome his political capital city Babylon, 1 Peter 5, verse 13, or 14, or 15, is there. So our chief of legions there to this heavenly city, our capital city of the heavenly Jerusalem. This is part of why and part of what's going on when Paul says in Philippians 3.20, who listed for you there, for we are citizens of heaven, from which we await our Savior, our Lord, our King, Jesus, the anointed Christ. We're citizens of another place, too. So we have heavenly Jerusalem as our capital city is Christian today, too. You're to hold this city as the highest in your affections. Thinking, thinking on its beauty and upon Jesus presence there. See the parallels, look up to number two, what it meant to an Old Testament as you like, and see that all transfers to us as Christians. We hold the heavenly Jerusalem in highest in our affections, thinking on its beauty and upon Jesus presence there. And so, Bob Redforce, Colossians 3, 1, 3, 4, listens to what Paul says about how we should be thinking on the heavenly Jerusalem, just like the exiles in Babylon, we're thinking on the earthly Jerusalem and say, may I never forget you, Jerusalem. Paul says this Colossians 3, 1, since then you've been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above. Where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. See, heavenly Jerusalem, think. Have your hearts on the heavenly Jerusalem. Set your minds on things above. Not on earthly things. For you die to the world and to the world's capitals. Okay, this is why Christians can not get so upset with what's going on in their nation if they don't like what's going on in their nation right now. Because this is just our, for the time being. It's like something going on in Babylon. Figures, right? Well, it doesn't it is real life. Figures. Of course they're doing that in Babylon. These are people without God's spirit. Figures. But our affections are set toward our heavenly Jerusalem. We're thinking on its beauty, on Jesus' presence there. We've died to the world's capitals. Our life is now hidden with Christ and God. Or Philippians 4.8, listen to how Paul talks about where our minds should be as Christians as we live this life among the unbelieving world. He says this. Philippians 4, it finally breathes whatever is true. A lot of that in our world. No. Whatever is true. Whatever is noble. A lot of noble people being lifted up and given as examples. No. Whatever is true. Whatever is noble. Whatever is right. Boy, it's a description of what the world is not. Whatever is right. Whatever is pure. That doesn't describe our world. Whatever is lovely. See this, Jerusalem. But lovely. But for us the heavenly Jerusalem. Whatever is lovely. Whatever is admirable. Whatever we want to follow and copy in God says, yes, that's it. Whatever is admirable. If anything is excellent or phrase worthy, think about such things. So we're like this, aren't we? About to cast our minds on the beauty of the city above. Our capital city, the heavenly Jerusalem, where Christ dwells at God the Father's right hand. Not where Solomon used to dwell. We're not exiles in Babylon. But we're Christ dwells now. Number three. As you live your life away from the heavenly Jerusalem, away from your capital city, you're to have your hopes. You're to have your hopes in one day being there. Paul had his hopes in one day being there. Philippians 123. He's in prison. I think he's in Ephesus and prison there. Makes sense. And if you want to talk to me about that, you can. Most people say he's writing from Roman prison. And that could be not heresy either way. It just makes more sense with what he said. So he's in Ephesus. But he's writing there and he's in prison. And he doesn't know whether he's going to be executed. Doesn't know whether he's going to make it out or not. So he's considering whether he lives or dies. And he says, I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far. And we say, I get it. That's when I talk about lots. You know, we're ready. We're ready. We're hanging on. You know, we were hanging on because we have kids. We have each other. You know, but we sympathize, right? As believers. You know, it's like, you know, Paul says, I'm going to stay here. I'm pretty sure Christ is going to keep me here for your stakes. Thanks a lot. But he's right to be with Christ in heaven is better by far. And that's what he deeply desires. And so that's what we hope for too. Whenever God determines it, whenever it's our day, you know, that God says to us a Job and a Psalms, a Joseph, you know, God, he's got our days numbered. He knows our last day. We don't know our last day. He knows it's been mapped out. But we just, we just patiently endure the constant command in the book of Revelation. Patiently endure. We patiently endure until that time when Christ himself takes us whether by persecution or disease or death. So we have our hopes and when they've been there. And that's the idea with, you'll test an Israelite. They were to pray that God would bring them back to the earthly Jerusalem. That was to be their hope. They were as Psalm 137 did long to be in Jerusalem. The long to be. And we long to be as our Lord in heaven. And to pray, you know, come Lord Jesus for him just to come back during our life. Okay. So the question is now, how do you make it? How do you make it until that time when you're in the heavenly Jerusalem? How do you make it to that time if Christ comes back, you know, a thousand years from that. And you die before it comes back. How do you make it until that time when he says, this is your last day. And you haven't met Joe Black. You know, in that movie. This is your last day and go, how do you make it? How do you endure to that time? How do you do it? Will you make it? Does God care? And in this passage you see this element contained in the feast of tents, these tabernacles, that gives us the ability to endure now, even though we're not where we want to be. We get this message that God will deliver you in the future. Until then, though God will sustain you as you're in that place you don't want to be. And in the meanwhile, we have this message that God will provide for you and even make you fruitful, giving you even now joy. So number two, reflect. That's your words. Reflect on the feast or the festival of tabernacles or tents. And the festival of tabernacles occurred in the fall. It's October, late September or early October. I should admit, early October to mid-October, the Jewish people were on a lunar calendar. That gets you 13 months a year, some years. And as they had leaped months, they had 12 months and then every couple of years they had 13 months. It was based on the moon cycle, which is about 29 and a half days. Something like that, it's 29 days. So that's why Jewish holidays skip around. That's why Easter is on a different age here because it stays on a lunar calendar. So they were to have this festival, the festival of tents. And it commemorated a number of things. But this was valuable. And we hear here in verse 2 of 1 Kings 8 that Solomon waits for this time. Looks like he waits for this time when everybody's gathered for the feast of tabernacles in this 7th month, October or October, to dedicate the temple. What is the feast of tabernacles teach us, as believers? Well, first of all, we talk about a, what did it teach Old Testament is for? What did it mean? What did it mean in Old Testament times? This was the 15th of the 7th month of October, the 7th month, roughly mid-October for us, as five days after the day of the tournament. It lasted for seven days. You saw that. Leafy branches, palm fronds, and that kind of thing. Some people have, we don't agree with it, but some people have wondered if Palm Sunday had occurred on the feast of tabernacles instead of, you know, out when it did with Passover, because of the leafy branches that were waived to Jesus. But not, you know, they just grabbed those to do for Jesus. But regularly, every year, feast of tabernacles, tabernacles, leaky branches were pulled and made into booths or tents. Now, I hate camping. I live in a house and I have a mattress and I have central air. I don't want to pretend that I don't. But it's okay if you like camping. But God's people were forced to camp. And I think I would have tried to be an obedient insularite back then. And forced to camp. They didn't have central air. And they didn't have comfortable. They didn't have sympathetic mattresses back then either. But they were, it was one of the three pieces of the year. They were to go to Jerusalem and they were to pull these leafy fronds, you know, palm branches, all kinds of branches like that, and make a tent for themselves. And dwell on this bench for seven days. So they made booths. That's why this is called feast of tabernacles or booths. They all made a little tent, a little tabernacle for themselves. That's what's called the feast of festival tabernacles. And they occupied these tents or booths or tabernacles for seven days. So here's what it's meaning, what an old testament. His real number one was an annual celebration of Israel's present. So when God's people celebrated this in the Promised Land, they were celebrating something that was going on in the Promised Land that was present to their day. And here was the, here's what they were celebrating, the fruit of the harvest that God had given them in the Promised Land that fall. So we saw that in Deuteronomy 16 as verses 13 through 15. The feast of tabernacles part of it was a celebration of harvest. It was a harvest festival. They brought the harvest in. That's why it's in the fall. So all the harvest to come in, the middle, you know, the early harvest, the summer harvest, and then the fall harvest, like growing up in Epstein, New York, we had an apple orchard. So the apples were coming in late September through October. So the fall harvest up there. And they were to celebrate this, the fruit of the harvest that God had given them in Israel in that fall. And so they all gathered in Jerusalem and the feast of tabernacles when they lived in the land. And they celebrated the feast of tabernacles and it's a harvest festival. Number two, it was also an annual reminder of this real past. So one, they celebrated the present, the harvest, but two, they remembered the past. And this was the past of God's deliverance of Israel from its slavery, that's your blank, from its slavery in Egypt. And of their journey through the wilderness, that's your next blank wilderness, of their journey through the wilderness to the Promised Land when they lived in tents for four years. See, so the feast of tents or the feast of tabernacles commemorated that time when God delivered them from their slavery in Egypt, and sustained them in the wilderness while they lived in tents and their shoes didn't wear out and they always had food, he sustained them in the wilderness while bringing them into the Promised Land. And so that was part of why they made tents and they didn't have to carry a tent on their backpack from zebulin way up in the north, they just came and they grabbed some palm fronds and they made their own tent, and I don't know if there's a contest for best tabernacle or what they had there, but it was a remembrance that God sustains his people in the wilderness and he brings them into the Promised Land. So they lived in these tents and so that was talked about in Leviticus 23, God specifically named there, this is so you remember that I delivered you and I brought you up out of Egypt, and I sustained you and bringing you to the Promised Land and it's high fed to the feast of tabernacles in Leviticus 23. Third thing, the feast of tents was looking forward to the future of Israel. And this ties into God's people receiving the Book of First Kings and what's said about God's people celebrating this again after the exile in the Book of Zechariah. Book of Zechariah mentions that God's people will again celebrate the feast of tabernacle in the Promised Land after their exile. So it was looking forward to the future for Israel when God would, here's your blank, deliver or gather the First Readers of Kings around 560 BC from their exile in Babylon. So if you were reading this back in exile, you could say, you know what, this feast of tabernacles is a reminder that God sustains His people in exile when they're outside the Promised Land, but He brings them into it. And so there's hope for us. We're in exile now, but God will bring us into the Promised Land again a second time or a third time at the time of Abraham. So looking forward to the future of Israel when God would deliver the First Readers of Kings from their exile in Babylon bringing them back to the Promised Land, bringing them back to the Promised Land. So if the writer of Kings writes this, let us say, oh, he's the tabernacles. God sustains His people in exile. He sustains His people outside even when they're outside the Promised Land and He brings them back to it. Just like He brought our forefathers out of He just back to the land of their father Abraham, which is the land of promise that Abraham likes to. Now, again, so what? What does this mean for us? This means for us today for the church and for you to be, this means today for the church and for you in the present. In the present, this is a command to you to be grateful and glad to be in the church today's Promised Land. Recognize the significant difference between you and the exiles reading this book. Now, you've been brought in to the Promised Land of the church. There are the churches the Promised Land for believers today. It's the place where everyone around you is giving a sense to the fact that the son of David is king. That's the definition of a church, not of a curse. The definition of a church is the place where everyone acknowledges that Jesus is the son of David and the rightful king who calls the shots here. So in the present, be grateful. You've just in this place of great privilege as a church member. You've been brought into the Promised Land, into the Promised Land of the church. There are Colossians 1, 12 and 13. He has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints and lights, to share in the inheritance that's Promised Land. He's qualified you by Jesus, by forgiving your sins, by giving you Jesus' righteousness. He has qualified you to be a member of the church and is giving you an eternal inheritance, not a piece of land, but is giving you an eternal inheritance. And having delivered you, this is Colossians 1, 13 now, having delivered you out of the kingdom of darkness, Egypt, Babylon, delivered you out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of lights, into the kingdom of the sun. He loves. And so be grateful. In the midst of all the chaos of the world, be glad, because you've been delivered into the kingdom of the sun. You've been given an eternal inheritance. So in the present, be glad, say, you know what? I'm a member of the church. That's enough for me. He's qualified me to share an eternal inheritance. So be grateful and glad. Number 2. Also in the present. Also in the present. As you're in the church, be glad over the fruit of the harvest. Be glad over the fruit of the harvest that God's providing by His Spirit. You know, the church is a place of the feast of tabernacles. Deuteronomy 1614 says, where to be joyful in the feast of tabernacles. Deuteronomy 1615, the next verse it says, celebrate. This is the feast of celebration. Why? Because the harvest has been had. God was providing fruitfulness for His people in the promised land. And we today celebrate even in the midst of this world that we live in. We, the people who got celebrating the midst of it because of the harvest. The fruit of the harvest that God provides for us. We have our own feast of tabernacles as we think on these things. Two kinds of fruits of the harvest that scripture speaks of us. Speak today for us in the church. Number 1. Number 1. The fruit of the Spirit in your life. And the fruit of the Spirit in the lives of your brothers and sisters in Christ in Christ kingdom. Isn't that a nice thing that your brothers and sisters in Christ are growing in the fruit of the spirit of patience? And they're growing in the fruit of the spirit of kindness. And of love. And that the church is a place where there's peace. The church is a place where there's self control. And good news, that's all true of you too. You're being conformed to the image of Christ. You are increasingly experiencing the fruit of the Spirit in your life. This is your personal harvest in your lifetime that you can have joy over and that you can celebrate over. Every year of your life, you can look at yourself and say, I'm more like Jesus and it's easier to be more like Jesus, at least in your soul. You feel less guilty. You have more joy. You feel like, you know what? I kind of understand things. And I know how to respond to people in like situations. And that gives me joy and satisfaction. And so there's celebration over that that we have in our lives of the fruit of the spirit in us and in our brothers and sisters. The other kind of fruit of the harvest that's going on is this your be the harvest of souls. Scripture also speaks of this, the harvest of souls. And we're to rejoice over this that more people are coming into the kingdom. More people are coming in when someone new comes in, when someone believes whether it's one of our kids or somebody from outside, when a friend of ours or relative of ours comes to believe we rejoice and we're glad. The kingdom is not limited in space. We're glad the bigger and bigger it becomes. And so we rejoice. We rejoice over that good harvest at our little feast of tabernacles. So it felt as being the harvest of souls that is his bringing God bringing you and others into the church, into the church that you're blank from the fields of the world. Jesus spoke of the Jesus speaks of this in Matthew 9. The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few who speaks to disciples about doing evangelism. The harvest is plentiful out there in the world. There's fruit to be picked, harvest to be picked through the sharing of the gospel. And then, what God read for us this morning from the latter part of Matthew 13, the parable of the wheat in the weeds, and they're together and that's life on this earth now. They're Christians and they're non-Christians and they're all growing together. That's your neighborhood. They grow up together but at the end, what's Jesus say? He gathers from the fields. And the wheat gathers into his barn and the the tears of the weeds he throws into the fire. So this is harvest of souls. It's coming from the fields from the fields of the world. And then number three, number three. Also in the present, you're to remember, this is all tied to tabernacles, you're to remember and be thankful for Jesus' deliverance of you. Be thankful for Jesus' deliverance of you through the cross from your slavery to sin, from your slavery to sin and membership in the kingdom of the world. He saved you. He's rescued you. He's transferred you out of the kingdom of the world and brought you into the kingdom of his son out of your slavery to sin. And just like he had brought his people out of Egypt and his goodness rejoiced me thankful for his goodness and sustaining you in the wilderness of this life. Be grateful, be thankful for his sustaining you, his goodness and sustaining you in the wilderness of this life. Jesus said, whoever sins is a slave of sin. And this whole imagery of the history, we get from God people, other being enslaved in Egypt and delivered from that kingdom of slavery, that kingdom of darkness, out of their slavery into the freedom of the promised land is really for telling what would happen to us with the gospel. That we would be delivered from our slavery to sin. All talks about that as well in Romans 6 and 7. We would be delivered out of our slavery to sin and that sin would no longer be our master. And we would no longer be in the kingdom of darkness where the prince of the power of the air Satan is ruling. But we would be delivered from that, delivered from Pharaoh, delivered from Satan and brought into the kingdom where there is a good king who is out for our good and worked for our good. That is Jesus. And so just as the feast of Tabernacles, as they gathered in their booths, was a reminder of their deliverance from their slavery in Egypt. So today we come together and we remember that Jesus has rescued us from the dominion of darkness, the dominion of our slavery to our sin natures and our membership in the kingdom of Satan. So that's in the present where to remember these things. In scripture calls, our lives here, Hebrews 4, is all about the life in the world is wilderness living. All of life in the world is wilderness living. And the question is, Hebrews 4, will you believe in Jesus and come into the promised land? But the world is wilderness. This is not, the United States is not the promised land. Nowhere in the world is the promised land. The promised land today where we have got this temporary foothold in the church. But the promised land is the kingdom of God instead. And then number four, in the present remembering and being thankful for Jesus deliverance of Jesus in all those ways. Number four, you're to look forward to the future. You're to look forward to the future of the church. Look forward to the future of the church and what will happen in the future. This is when God will gather us. When God will gather us from the exile of this life bringing us into heaven. And at the final harvest, at the final harvest gathering us as people into the final promised land of the new heavens in the world. This is our future hope. This is where we're like the readers of First Kings. Where we're recognized, you know, living in this world is living in exile. And just to say long to be back in Jerusalem, to be delivered back in Jerusalem, we live in exile as Christians today as we live in this world. And we long to be delivered by Jesus into either the heavenly Jerusalem or finally in the final harvest. The heavenly Jerusalem come down, the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21, where Christ, the Son of David, dwells with us as people. He is our God. We are His people face to face. Jesus speaks of this in Matthew 1330, the Bible read to us in 39. But there's this final harvest. Look, a revelation speaks of this as well. You see it in Revelation 1415. The final judgment is final harvest. Jesus sends out his angels and they gather everybody up and they separate wheat from wheat. Look, those who are wheat, those who are as young, those who are as people who have been living in exile. Strangers in this world for Peter 1, 1, for Peter 1, 7, for Peter 2, 11. Strangers in this world, exiles in this world, are gathered up into the barn and we are the ones who meet who then inherit the earth. So, summary, summary. A, first of all, Jerusalem. What is Jerusalem? Set your affections on the heavenly Jerusalem and long to be there. That's the message of this text. You're an exile, but you're to set your affections on the heavenly Jerusalem and long to be there. But then be tense. That's right. But they're tense. This talks about God sustaining us. This talks about how we make it until that time in which Christ comes back and dwells with us on this earth or if he doesn't come back in our day until he gives us that last day or gain for us in our lives. Be happy. Be happy for your and the church's fruitfulness. How do you make it today? How are you sustained? Be happy. Recognize what's around you. The church is fruitful. You're fruitful. You're becoming more like Jesus each day. That means God cares for you. He's making more like his son each day. He's alive and he's well in you. And the church is well and the church grows with new believers. So be happy for your and the church's fruitfulness. Secondly, remember, second part of Tabernacles with the booze. Remember God's deliverance of you into the church through the cross, through that Passover lamb, the tenth plague, so to speak. Remember God's deliverance of you into the church through the cross. This is another reason you can be happy. He loves me and he delivered me and brought me into the church. And there's things. Look forward. Look forward to deliverance. You know, when I run, I've got this one run that I do. It's called a progression run. And I hate progression runs more than anything. What you do on a progression run is you run for an hour. Okay, feel the grounds. And each five minutes, each five minutes you increase your pace. Now, the final pace of this progression run that I do is about my five K pace, which I can do for 20 minutes. But I've been doing this by the time I get to it. I've been running for 55 minutes. And it's a brutal run because here's what happens. You're running along and you're like, okay, two more minutes in this little segment here. But then you realize at the end of this two more segments, I have to go faster. There's not an end at the end of this five minutes. It's worse in five minutes. That's why it's a terrible run. In contrast to this, this is a run I did another 60 minute run of a different kind on Friday. It was just run at this certain pace for 60 minutes. And I got to that last 20 minutes and I said, okay, I can do this. I got to that last half mile and I said, okay, I can do this. And even though my body was slowing down and I was running out of energy, there was still athletes who are still this anaerobic energy, energy in your muscles. And I could carry me on because I knew I could do this for five more minutes. Okay, now I only have two more minutes left. There's something out there in my future. And when I get to that, I can rest because I have hope, I have hope of rest and that hope of rest sustains me in my present, my present agony. I get sustained because what's coming next for me is rest in God's good time. And so I look forward. How do we make it in this life by saying, you know what? God's going to give me endurance to get through. You know, he'll provide for me like he did for the Israelites for 40 years. He's sustained them for all that time until they made it into the promised land. And God will provide for you. He'll sustain you as you remember these things as you look forward and hope in the heavenly Jerusalem to be there. He'll sustain you as you look forward to your deliverance to heaven and back in your blanks now. And so look forward to your deliverance to heaven at the end of your life and look forward to the new heavens and new earth from the exile from the exile of this life. He gives us hope. He's either coming soon or will sustain us until that last day he gives us fear on the earth. And this we see from our affection of Jerusalem and our reflection on tabernacles. Thanks. Let's pray.