Summer Psalms 2026 – Week 3

Good morning, church. Good morning, everyone. So happy to be here with you all this morning. My name is Luis Cruz. I'm one of the pastors here at The Grove, and today is a very special Sunday. Not because I'm preaching, and not because today is the final World Cup game at 3:00. I know some of you are really excited about that. Today is a very special Sunday for me because I have some of my best friends right here in the front row. This is our third, fourth, and fifth grade class from The Grove Kids.

Can we give them a nice welcome? Now, me and John Cooper, we have the privilege of teaching God's word every Sunday back there to the third, fourth, and fifth graders. What a treat it is for us to instill God's word into these young lives from the very beginning. For them to have a solid foundation in God's word, and it's a privilege to be able to teach you guys God's word every Sunday. Now, you're probably wondering why I've invited these students to join me here today.

And so a few weeks ago, my good friend John Cooper brought a lesson out of the Book of Numbers chapter 16 that recounts a rebellion from a character in scripture called Korah. You guys remember that? Korah, right? And so that rebellion is going to serve for us as sort of a backdrop on the Psalm that we're going to be looking at this morning. And so if you have your Bibles ready, Psalm 84. Students, I trust you all have your Bibles. I can see that you do.

Psalm 84. So I want to give you, before we dive into Psalm 84, I want to give you a little bit of some context to who Korah was, okay? And here on the screen, I've put together a sort of a family tree or lineage of Korah. You can see Korah on the very bottom middle on red. You see him? Yeah. So if we follow all the way to the top, we see that we have... I actually have a screen here. We have Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. We know that Jacob had 12 sons, right?

The Lord renamed Jacob to Israel, and so his 12 sons are considered 12 tribes of Israel. Levi is one of his 12 sons. Now under Levi, we have Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. I'm going to pause there. You guys might remember that not soon after Moses and the Lord rescued all of Israel through the hand of Moses and just led them out of the land of Egypt as slaves, right? The Lord met with Moses at Mount Sinai for 40 days, and those 40 days, you guys remember this, we went through this.

The Lord gave Moses very specific instructions on how to build the structure called the Tabernacle, which would be the place that God himself would dwell with his people. God gave him instructions on what materials to use, how to build it, the dimensions, so many details. Incredible detail. And scripture actually says that the Lord himself revealed what it would look like. Moses saw it even before it was built. The Lord showed it to him. Another interesting thing is that the Lord also gave Moses very specific roles that would be assigned to the sons of Levi.

So for Gershon and his family, they were in charge of the coverings and the curtains and the soft material. For Merari, he was in charge and his family of the framing, kind of like the structure of the Tabernacle. Now for Kohath, him and his family, they were in charge of transporting all of the holy items from one place to another. As we know, the Israelites moved around a lot, right? And so this Tabernacle needed to be portable so that they could move from one place to another, depending on where God's presence would lead them to.

Okay, so far so good? All right. So they were the transporters. Now we see that under Kohath, we have several other sons, and then under that, we have Korah. There's one exception, though. Under Kohath, everybody was a transporter, everyone was a mover, except Moses, who the Lord called him to be the leader of Israel, and except Aaron, who the Lord also called him and his sons to be the priests of Israel. So that's sort of the family tree. What happened?

The students know here know what happened. The idea of you guys being here today is that you know about Korah's rebellion, but you don't know what happened afterwards. Or you may not know. Maybe Mr. Cooper already told you and spoiled the surprise. Okay? So let's look at what happened. If you were to read Book of Numbers chapter 16, you'll see that Korah didn't enjoy his role, didn't like being the mover, being the transporter, had enough. So one day he decided to, him along with a couple of other families and 250 leaders of Israel to confront Moses and Aaron They basically wanted to be priests also.

So how come me and my kids, we're the movers, but you guys have the fancy title of being priests? I don't like that. And so, in the Book of Numbers, chapter 16, there's an exchange between Moses and Korah, and Moses is devastated. He's like, "What are you talking about? These are the roles that God assigned to us." And I won't go into the detail, you can read it in your own time. But the very next day, God himself speaks to Moses and he tells Moses, "Listen, stay away from Korah and all these people, because I am going to consume them."

So, if God tells you something like that, you listen. You don't want to be anywhere near Korah because you don't know what's about to happen. How is God going to consume these people? And so the very next day, sure enough, the ground opened up, scripture says, and it swallowed up Korah and those that were with him, and then the ground closed back up and they were consumed. As far as the 250 leaders of Israel, the Bible says that fire came from God, from Yahweh, and consumed them instantly.

And that was it. That was a rebellion. So, Korah's pride and lack of gratitude for the roles, or the role that God had instilled in them or had given to them, led to the destruction of him and so many other people. His pride and lack of gratitude. Now you might think, can anything good come out of Korah's family tree? Given that backdrop, can anything good come out of that? Well, further along, Book of Numbers, chapter 26, there's a small verse that says that Korah's sons were spared or survived this incident.

That's all it says. It doesn't say why. No detail. It only says that Korah's sons survived that incident, and they were alive. Now, what happened with Korah's sons? Later on in scripture, we see that they became musicians in the temple while King David and Solomon were reigning. They became doorkeepers, kind of like the security detail. An interesting fact, Prophet Samuel came out of Korah's family line. Isn't that interesting? They were also writers of songs.

They were musicians. And Psalm 84 is one of those songs, written by the sons of Korah. And that's an important backdrop for us to have in mind as we dive deep into Psalm 84. So with that, I'm going to ask if you're able to stand for the reading of God's word, please. Psalm 84. "How lovely are your dwelling places, O Yahweh of hosts. My soul has longed and even fainted for the courts of Yahweh. My heart and my flesh they sing for joy to the living God.

Even the bird has found a home, and the swallow, a nest for herself, where she sets her young at your altars. O Yahweh of hosts, my King and my God, how blessed are those who dwell in your house. They are ever praising you. How blessed is the man whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. Passing through the valley of Baca, they make it a spring. The early rain also wraps it up with blessings. They go from strength to strength.

Each one of them appears before God in Zion. O Yahweh, God of hosts, hear my prayer. Give ear, O God of Jacob. See our shield, O God, and look upon the face of your anointed. For better is a day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I would choose to stand at the threshold of the house of my God, than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For Yahweh God is a sun and a shield. Yahweh gives grace and glory. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk blamelessly.

O Yahweh of hosts, how blessed is the man who trusts in you." Let's pray. Father God, Lord, thank you for the privilege to dive into Psalm 84 and share what you've revealed to me, Lord, in the past few weeks, Lord, with my friends, with my brothers, my sisters, your church, Lord. Open up our minds, Lord. Open up our hearts, Lord, that there would be further ground, Lord, for your truth to penetrate our hearts, and that we would be obedient to your call in our lives, Lord.

That we would learn what you would want us to learn, Lord. We thank you for this time. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. Our big idea for today is to set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on Earth. Set your mind on the things above, not on things that are on Earth. That seems familiar. Anybody know where that verse is from? It's actually from Colossians 3:3. I could not come up with a better big idea. I just plagiarized scripture.

Listen, God's word is better than anything that I can come up with. Amen? Set your mind on things above. Now, that right there, set your mind, is a call to action. Okay? There's no discussion about that. Right? There's no room for negotiations. This is not a debate. This is God through His word telling us to set our minds on the things above and not on the things of this earth. Now, it's very specific. There's no room for interpretation. It's really clear, right?

So why is it so clear? It's because our tendency is to do the opposite. Right? If we're honest, our tendency is to not set our minds on the things above and to set the things that are on earth. Happens to all of us. So that's our reminder today. That's our big idea. Set your mind on the things above. Last year, I went for an eye exam, and it had been a few years that I had gone to one. Most of my life, I've had 20/20 eyesight, and I've sort of bragged about it for years, especially with my siblings.

And so decided to go and to my surprise, the doctor came back with a prescription for lenses. And you have no idea what that did to me, okay? All right? To my pride. I did not like that a bit. Right? So I said, "What are you talking about? He must be wrong. I have 20/20 eyesight." So I did what any good responsible patient would do after your doctor gives you instructions. I grabbed this prescription, and I put it away in a drawer. Didn't do anything with it.

All right? Because I'm like, "Maybe the doctor's wrong. My eyesight is all right. I see just fine." Then my wife gets involved, right? And you guys can guess what happened, right? Oof. What a blessing. What a blessing. These are readers, so I can't see you now, right? But man, she got involved and it's funny because I had no idea how skewed my vision was, especially up close, until my wife Cynthia bought me these. No idea. She kept complaining that when I would look at my phone, or I would be reading scripture or something, that I would just have this mean face.

It's like, "What? Are you mad? Are you upset?" Like, "No. Why are you thinking I'm upset?" "Because it's the way you look." I'm like, "I'm fine. I don't know what you're talking about." But then I started wearing these, like, "Wow, there. You're back. You're back. Your nice, handsome face is back." I don't know. She didn't say that part, but- So listen, church, I want to encourage you this morning that to set your mind on the things above, you have to look at life through the lenses of scripture.

A lot of times, life throws curve balls and our vision gets skewed, our visions gets blurry. We have to look at life through the lenses of scripture. We are heaven bound, church. We do not belong to this world. Amen? Amen. And so I am constantly reminding our students here in the front row when I'm teaching that as believers, we have three enemies, right? Do you guys remember those? You guys remember, what was the first one? The flesh. The flesh.

Right. What's the second one? The world. The world, the influences of the world. And the third one? What? Satan. Satan, the devil. Yes. Amen. And those were all found through scripture, right? And I would say the worst one of those is my flesh. Satan is the tempter. The world can influence me. But my flesh, wow, that's a hard one. That's a hard one. And that's why this Christian walk is a constant battle. It's a constant battle of the spirit and the flesh.

God's desire for us to be holy, set apart, versus what the flesh really wants. And that's hard, and that's why we have to look at life through the lenses of scripture. You need lenses. I need lenses. Now let's look at the text, verse one, Psalm 84. "How lovely are your dwelling places, O Yahweh of hosts! My soul has longed and even fainted for the courts of Yahweh; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God." Now, these opening verses give us an immediate idea of the heart posture behind the sons of Korah.

Okay? Just reading those two verses alone tells you a lot of who they've become, right? Given their backdrop, right? Given what their father did, right, and all those people that followed him. They were completely sold out for Yahweh. And so here, to set our minds on the things above, church, we must desire to be where God is. And so that leads me to our first point this morning is long for God's presence. Desire God's presence And that's exactly where Korah's sons wanted to be.

They wanted to be in God's presence. That was their desire. It says that they would even faint at the thought of being in God's presence. Now, I don't think I've ever fainted before. Maybe my wife knows. By the way, where is my wife? There she goes. I don't know. I don't think I have, but I've been close to it. I remember being 21 years old and on my wedding day, you guys have seen a lot of wedding videos of just the groom fainting, right? Right before he gets married, and so that almost happened to me.

Right? Just the anticipation and the excitement of just being married to the woman of my dreams, right? And she comes down the aisle and I, man, I held on strong. I did not faint. So I'm like, "I am not going to be a viral video anywhere." Right? And listen, we're almost turning 25 years of marriage in a few months. Praise God. Wow. Praise God. Thank you. And so, no, but praise God. That's all glory to God. And I would say, listen, we both work from home, right?

We homeschool. We're around each other 24/7, okay? And we get along so well. I love being with her. I love being in her presence. Even for little things, like if she asks me to go to get some milk because we ran out of milk, I'm like, "Hey, you want to come with me?" Like, "Just get the milk." I'm like, "What?" I really want to be with her all the time. I don't know how she feels, but that's how I feel, right? And so what does it mean to practically desire or long for God's presence?

What does that mean? Well, because we lived in this world, and because we have a constant battle with our flesh, we must relinquish the entanglements, the stuff that keeps pulling us into the world. We must relinquish that and have a heaven-bound mindset. You have to remember all of the time, students, church, that you're heaven-bound. That's your home and not this place. So you're thinking, well, what made Korah's sons desire... I mean, just the first couple of verses.

What made them desire God so much? Well, cause and effect. Cause and effect. God saved them. And so, wow, God saved me from all of that, and I am here, and the Lord is using me for His purpose. I don't care whether I'm a mover, whether I'm just cleaning around, whether I'm stacking up chairs, whether you're up here in the worship team, whether you're teaching God's Word, you have a role in the body of Christ. And so my question to you is, to desire God's presence, what has God saved you from?

Think about it. Has He saved you? It's really easy to get caught up with the day-to-day of life, just getting caught up with life. It happens to me all the time. Listen, this week was a tough week, and the enemy knows that, right? Because I was preparing for this message, and he was just throwing all kinds of fiery darts at me and my family. And it's so easy to just get caught up on all those things. It's so easy for me to be distracted, that I'm heaven-bound.

Who cares? I'm heaven-bound. But still in my flesh, man, it hurts. There are some things that come your way and it hurts. Don't love the world. 1 John 2:15 says, "Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." That's it. Simple. Don't love the world. You are of the world, just don't love the world. Or excuse me, you live, you're here on the Earth, but you're not of the world. In church, when we love the world, we forget that we've been saved.

When we love the world, we forget that we are aliens in this world, right? And we're not talking about kooky monster aliens. I'm talking about foreigners. Like foreigners of this land. We do not belong here because it's not our home. And when we love the world, we forget that we're heaven-bound and that's our home. And so setting your mind on the things above means that you surrender the desires of your flesh, and instead, you desire to be with God.

You long for God's presence, and you even faint at the thought of being with Him. So look at ending of verse two. It says, "My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God." Now Pastor Jason, a few minutes ago, was talking about singing and the privilege of being able to sing. Him and our guest preacher last week, Eitan, we all share that same lack of being able to sing. I can play the piano, and that's great, but man, sometimes I have dreams that I sing, and I sing so good And I wish I could sing.

I'm privileged, though, I'm privileged that I have my wife, my oldest daughter, and my youngest daughter, Ariana, who are phenomenal singers. The Lord has blessed them with that talent of singing well. We can all sing, but it's just singing well unto the Lord. And so at home, I already told you, we work from home, we home school, we're around each other 24/7. There's a lot of singing at home. And it's beautiful, it's constant, and it's angelic. And a lot of times I'm on my computer and I don't want to ruin it, right?

So I'll just whistle. I'll just go along with the whistle. And it's beautiful. I love it. And I know that if any of them is having a tough day, there's no singing, right? It's when their flesh maybe perhaps has been poked, right, by Satan. And so sing to the Lord with joy. Now let's look at the text again. Verse three, "Even the bird has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she sets her young at your altars, O Yahweh of Hosts, my King and my God!"

Now, I love, students, I love the imagery that we see here. We have the sons of Korah. You guys remember, right? They're now serving in the temple as musicians. They're doorkeepers, some of them. And imagine them standing outside of the temple of God, where God's presence is, and they're just looking around. They wrote these words through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, right? They're looking around. They're seeing birds creating their nests near the presence of God.

It's beautiful. And throughout scripture, we see that creation, it's not just us, all of creation worships the Lord, all of creation, in the desire to be near God. And if the birds of the sky desire to be near God, how much greater should our desire be? This section of Psalm 84 concludes this section with verse four. Let's read it. "How blessed are those who dwell in your house. They are ever praising you." They are ever praising you. So if we were to have some type of video surveillance system in your house, if we were to tap into it, are you ever praising the Lord at home?

Are you ever praising the Lord? Meaning, are you constantly, there's praise on your lips constantly. Is it? It should and it must. And so far in this Psalm, the Lord is calling us to desire where He is, to desire His presence, right? To desire to be with God, to set our minds on Him always. And so think about it for you guys. Think about it like setting a destination on your GPS, like on Google Maps or Maps. You're setting a destination. Where are you going or where are you headed?

Think about it like that. Right? When you set your mind on things above, you're setting a destination for your life. As we navigate through life, we know that it's full of trials, tribulations, valleys, so we remember that we're heaven-bound, and that's our destination. Our second point this morning is to lean on God's strength. So with God's presence and where He is, and being heaven-bound as our destination in life as believers, we're still here on Earth.

We still have this journey called life, right? And students here in the front row, who of you guys like road trips? You guys like road trips? Anybody? Raise them high. Yeah? Half of you. Yeah? Half of you like road trips. I'm probably with the other half of you that don't like road trips. We've done our share of road trips. I'm okay with the road trip. I don't necessarily enjoy the journey. I'd rather just look forward to the destination. There are some times, right, in the road trip that you'll come across some scenic views that are magnificent.

And when I find those, for some reason, every time I find something that I'm excited about, I look over and everybody's asleep, right? I'm like, "Hey, look at..." And they're all sleeping. And listen, I drive. Cynthia has offered to drive. I just choose to drive, right? But I'm always looking forward to the destination. So life on Earth sometimes feels like a long road trip. Sometimes it feels short, depending on the day, right? You have beautiful scenic moments in life.

You have deep valleys in life. Sometimes it's isolating. And all I can think of is, are we almost there? Are we almost there? Lord, come. Lord, come. But the reality is, church, as believers, we have a mission, don't we? It's not just navigating through life. It's not just dealing with the trials and rejoicing in the blessings of life. We have a mission, just like Korah's sons had a mission. It is to share the love of Jesus Christ with the lost. Amen?

That is our mission. Let's look at verse five. "How blessed is the man whose strength is in you, and whose heart are the highways to Zion." I don't know if you guys are familiar with this competition, but every year, there's a competition of the World's Strongest Man. Have anybody seen that? World's Strongest Man. Yeah. It's just some couple of dudes. Yeah. So if you ever watch this, it's incredible the type of men that are in this competition. You look at them, they almost don't look like humans, right?

They're massive, these individuals. And the amount of weight that they can just carry around and push up and even throw is amazing. I'm talking about being able to lift a car, okay? With a rope, being able to pull a big jetliner, airplane, commercial airplane. Crazy. And I'm impressed by that. Listen, I'm a guy, I'm a guy's guy. I love stuff like that. I like working out. Maybe not as much as some others in the room, but I do enjoy it. But what's funny is that if you ever try to see one of those big dudes try to scratch their back, right?

You ever seen that? Like just a big person, or even their neck. They're just so big, and there's just so much mass they can't reach, and I find that hilarious. I'm sorry. I just find that so funny, that there's so much strength there, and yet they're so limited. They're so limited. And I'm so thankful that scripture doesn't call me or you to find your strength in the world's strongest man. How sad would that be? Listen, if I needed a security detail at one point in my life, I would probably want one of those guys as my security detail, right?

But I'm not going to find my strength in them. Scripture doesn't call us to find or lean into find our strength in the pastors of this church or any church. Scripture doesn't call us to find our strength in the President of the United States or any elected official. That's not what our strength is. The Lord doesn't call us to find our strength in each other. The Lord calls us to find our strength in Him. And so how do we do that? How do we find our strength in Him?

I know I try to be very practical for our students, and forgive me that I'm trying to mix it up here. I want to make sure you guys are engaged, but I want to make sure that our grown adults don't get bored either. All right? So I'm trying to walk a fine line here. How do we do that? How do we find our strength in the Lord? Now, that reminded me of Paul's thorn in his flesh. You guys familiar with that passage? Paul's thorn in his flesh. Now, for whatever reason, there was an incident or a circumstance that Paul was just really struggling in his flesh.

He doesn't go into detail on what it is or what it was, but he prays to the Lord. He says, "Three times I've begged to the Lord to remove this thorn from my flesh." Three different times. Scripture says that the Lord spoke to him, and the Lord said to him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Power is perfected in weakness. Some of you are saying, "I don't like where this is heading." Paul responds to that call from the Lord, and he says, "Most gladly then, I will then rather boast in my weakness so that the power of Christ may then dwell in me."

Now, Paul, if you know anything about Paul, Paul had a really extensive resume. Paul was a cool dude. In Philippians chapter three, starting in verse four, it says, this is Paul saying, "Listen, if anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh," meaning if anybody can brag about being a cool cat, if anybody can brag, it's me. I can brag. This is my resume. Look. Verse five it says, "I was circumcised on the eighth day. Of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, I was a Hebrew of Hebrews.

As to the law, I was a Pharisee." Pretty impressive. "As to zeal, I was a persecutor of the church. As to the righteousness which is in the law, I was found blameless." But the last verse says, "Whatever things were gain to me, those things I counted as loss for the sake of Christ." Impressive dude. Listen, I try to hold onto my resume. Like Pastor Randy, he's a engineer. I'm a sort of a different kind of engineer. I'm on IT and cybersecurity world.

That's my full-time job. And Listen, from time to time, I go into my resume and I spice it up, and I put in all the training and certification, it's all these different things, experiences that I'm proud of. But guess what? To find strength in God, I've got to surrender all those things that were of gain to me and count them as loss for the sake of Christ. That's how you find the strength of the Lord, is when you are weak. And when you are weak, you are then strong by the power of the Holy Spirit in you.

Amen? Let's look at the text. We read verse five already, "How blessed is the man whose strength is in you, whose heart are the highways to Zion." Now, verse six says, "Passing through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring. The early rain also wraps it up with blessings. They go from strength to strength, each one of them appears before God in Zion. O Yahweh, God of hosts, hear my prayer. Give ear, O God of Jacob." Just a side note, especially for you guys, students, whenever you see Zion in the Bible, that's referring to the city of David or the city of Jerusalem.

Okay? The Valley of Baca, that we see that in verse six. The word baca in Hebrew literally translated means to weep. So it's the valley of weeping. Some commentators believe that this was a real valley that the people of Israel, on their journey to the city of Jerusalem, would have to go through. And it was a tough terrain and whatnot. And it says that as they were going through that journey of the valley of weeping, it became a spring. It became a spring because the strength of the Lord was with them.

And so this is a picture of life on Earth, right? We're still on this journey where life sometimes is hard, right? But when we find our strength in the Lord, life becomes a spring. When we have our lenses, biblical lenses, and we have the mindset of being heavenly bound, because that's where we're headed. Our last point this morning is to learn to trust God. Learn to trust God. Now so far, we've been called to long for His presence, right, to lean on His strength.

Now we're being called to trust Him. Let's look at the remaining verses, verses nine through 12. "See our shield, O God, and look upon the face of your anointed. For better is a day in your courts than 1,000 elsewhere. I would choose to stand at the threshold of the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wickedness. For Yahweh God is a sun and a shield; Yahweh gives grace and glory; no good thing does He withhold from those who walk blamelessly.

O Yahweh of hosts, how blessed is the man who trusts in you." If we look at verse nine where it says, "See our shield and look upon the face of your anointed," that's likely referring to either King David or King Solomon, or probably both, and it's a prayer of blessing toward them. And for the sons of Korah, having become musicians, worship leaders, some door keepers, they were active in ministry in the tabernacle or in the temple. And their heart posture, again, they're saying, "I would rather spend one day here near the presence of God than thousands of days anywhere else."

It's that good. That's incredible. That's an incredible statement. I would rather be here and nowhere else than in God's house. This week, Cynthia and I were just having a discussion. From time to time, Cynthia and I will look back, and especially us almost turning 25 years as a married couple. We began to think about God's goodness in our life. And we started just naming them, right? God's many, many, many, many blessings in our lives through the last 25 years.

This, that, the other. It was a laundry list. It was incredible. Things that we even forgot about, like, wow, wow, that was God at work. Incredible. And then sort of like at the end of that conversation, I posed that question. I said, "Babe, has God ever been unfaithful or not good to us?" And I wanted to pause, right? I knew the answer to that. I said, "What evidence is there of God not being good to us?" A lot of times, in our minds, we take circumstances in life and we easily turn to Him and blame God for them.

And what's interesting is that, listen, here on Earth, we will sin against each other. I will sin against you. You might sin against me, or sin against each other God is good. Another interesting thing, if you read the book of Deuteronomy, 21 different times, Moses has to remind the people of Israel of God's goodness. Just read it. You know what? That's going to be today's challenge. Last year's challenge was to memorize Psalm 23. I hope some of you memorized it.

Today's challenge is, I want you to read the whole entire book of Deuteronomy, and with a highlighter, I want you to highlight the times that Moses told Israel, "Remember what God has done. Do not forget what God has done." Whenever you see that, highlight it. That's exactly what Moses was trying to convey to the people of Israel. Don't blame God for your sinfulness. God is good. Remember what He has done for us. Amen. Let me just also say, to trust God, you have to know Him.

You can't trust somebody that you don't know. Do you know God? Do you know of Him, or do you know God? You can't trust Him if you don't know Him. So far in this Psalm, the Lord is calling us to long to desire His presence, to lean on His strength, and to trust Him with our lives. And as I was preparing this message, the common denominator of those three points is that in order for me, in order for you to be obedient to the Lord, you have to exercise humility.

That's hard. Humility is hard to do. Our flesh wants nothing to do with that. Our flesh wants to boast. Our flesh wants to show off. Look what I've done. Look what I have. Look who I am. That's what the flesh really wants to do. And to be obedient to the call of God, we must embrace a spirit of humility in everything that we do. Everything. We are slaves of Christ. That is who we are. We belong to Him, and one day we will see Him face to face. Until then, exercising humility and pushing down the desires of our flesh and honoring the Lord, that's the requirement to honor the Lord in this call.

Pride is the killer of our submission to God, and we saw that with Korah. We saw that with Korah. Now would you say that Korah, students, was Korah prideful, or was he humble? Prideful. He was prideful. Thank you, Jackson. Yeah, thank you, students. He was prideful. Now here, Korah's sons, they learn from his dad's mistake. Like, "I'm not doing that. I'm going to serve Yahweh with all of my heart, and if it means that I'm on the doorsteps of the temple, then that's what it is.

If it means that I'm a musician, whatever it is, I'm going to exercise humility." And the Lord used them mightily. Hello? There were several songs that Korah's sons wrote, and they're here in Scripture. So you have Korah, you have Korah's sons. My question to you this morning is, which of the two are you? There's one of the two. You have to choose one. You can't stay in the middle. Which of the two are you? Are you heaven-bound, or are you bound by the things of Earth?

And if you're not sure of your answer, Pastor Jason and myself will be up here after the service, and we can have that discussion. We can pray for you. Let me just remind you, if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, today is the day of salvation. If you're not sure of that answer, today is your day of salvation. There's no more waiting around. You're either Korah, or you're either Korah's sons. There's no in between. Now, as I wrap up, I want to close this message with a reading from God's Word, and I just want you guys to intently listen.

This is God's Word, not my words. I want to encourage you with this passage from Scripture that comes out of 1 Thessalonians 4:16. Listen to this, please. "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we shall always be with the Lord.

Therefore, comfort one another with these words." Let's pray. Father God, thank you, Lord, for Your Word. Your Word is truth, Lord. That we would be sanctified by it, Lord. Help us, Lord, be like Korah's sons, Lord. Help us exercise humility as we walk through life. That we would put aside, Lord, whatever resume we've built in this Earth, that we would put that aside, that we would count all of that as loss for the sake of Christ because of what You've done.

Help us, Lord. I pray right now, Lord, for the lives that have not placed their trust in You, Lord. Right now, Lord, I pray that You would tug their hearts, that You would call them unto You, Lord, and they would surrender their ways and give their lives to You today, for today is the day of salvation. We thank You, Father, that we would not forget Your Word as we leave this place, Lord, that we would meditate Your Word throughout the day and this week and the days to come.

Help us, Lord, be faithful to You. Help us, Lord, be obedient to Your Word. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.