“More Than All the Dwellings of Jacob” (Ps 87)

His foundation is in the holy mountains. The LORD loves the gates of Zion More than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God! (vs1-2)

God loves and dwells with His elect, but His favorite place is His holy throne of grace, where He sits right now (vs1-3). We read, “The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob”. He walks with us, but He loves when we come to Him in prayer and faith, when we gather around His throne of grace, beseeching Him for mercy, because He loves to give. He says, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16). As we think on God's holy hatred of sin, it shocks us to see that in the Lord Jesus Christ, He delights to do us good. More than anything in the galaxies, He loves to give us things that we don't deserve and have never earned, simply because He is gracious from His own heart, and His Son earned the way for us! He loves the THRONE of grace because we meet Him there. What a God to DELIGHT in mercy. What great grace to LOVE to give!

If you've ever been loved by the Spirit, then you want to do things for others also. You know and believe all that you have in Christ, and this makes you generous, like God. We read, “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded” (John 13:3-4). God's most joyful act is giving through Christ to all who come to Him. Bless His name. God LOVES grace.

Secondly, even though we are CURSED by nature, we're made the children of God by grace (vs4). He says, "I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to those who know Me; Behold, O Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia: ‘This one was born there.’" This text speaks of the conversion of the heathen nations. Grace has called sinners and made them sons from every nation, not by human will power or merit, but entirely of God. We read, “Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). They are not saved by NATURAL but supernatural birth. Christ's outside of us power, by His word, changes us from religious fools and self-righteous sinners into humble children of God, giving us the inheritance FREELY.

Look back on your first birth and see how free, undeserved, and “not of you” free grace is. A child born rich in America cannot boast that he's earned his position. Likewise, sinners, filled with every imagination of wickedness, are born into the kingdom, entirely because God produces the change, gives the salvation, and makes us free. We REALIZE that we're born again, and we do believe, but it was God all the way through.

Finally, God is the One that establishes us (vs5-7). He says, “And of Zion it will be said, This one and that one were born in her; and the Most High Himself shall establish her”. He is our strength every inch of the way. He doesn't start, only to watch us falter, but He saves unto the end, gives the grace that we need, and He sticks it out with us.

Some are friends in your prosperity, but in your need, they turn away, helping not. God is One who saves, who births you in Christ, and then He sticks through your faults and trials, bears patient in your needs, and He provides for you unmerited favor, freely and continually, whereby you're established and fruitful, proving that you know Christ. He doesn't build the kingdom part way, but He finishes and actually saves EVERYONE who trusts in Him.

Proud flesh thinks that WE'RE better than others, as if we won't do what another child of God did in the past, as if we're somehow better and able to stand. Like Peter, we say, “Even though everyone else leaves you, it'll never happen to me! I'm far more faithful, far more real in the gospel, and when you get down to it, I'm just better than them”. He said, “Even if all are made to stumble, yet I will not”. Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you that today, even this night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times” (Mark 14:29-30). People say, “God did it”, but they look to themselves and trust themselves, evidencing they don't believe He did it at all.

Many others say, “I'm too sinful”, but how DARE you blaspheme the Son, as if He is too weak to save? That's impossible. You don't need any strength, and therefore, you have the same chance as anyone else, which is the GRACE of Christ. People say, “I can't make it. I can't overcome sin.” Whoever told you that you could was a liar, even if it was your own soul. You and I can do nothing, but with Christ, we can endure trials, praise Him in losses, and delight in His gospel amidst the greatest triumphs that we experience, walking humbly with God (Phil 4:13). You and I can be saved, overcome temptations, defeat the flesh and Satan, and all because God is the one that establishes us. He cannot fail. God builds us on Christ the Rock; it is NOT of man.