Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.citygracechurch.com/sermons/69735/psalm-2/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] Those of you who don't know me, my name is Jesse, one of the pastors here, along with Alan. And I just want to say quickly, before we jump into the sermon, if you're listening to this online, thank you.

[0:12] If you're new, glad you're with us. You started pretty early on in our Psalm series, so you haven't missed too much. If you want to go back and listen to any previous sermons, they are available on our app and would really recommend that.

[0:24] Psalm is just an amazing book. We are really excited to be journeying together as a church in this. And so if you have a Bible with you, we're going to be actually looking at Psalm 2 together today.

[0:35] And if you're new to having a Bible, guess what? It's right in the middle. It's easy to find. Just open up your Bible to about what's in the middle and you'll see you're there. And then go to Psalm 2.

[0:46] The Psalm, Psalms, interestingly enough, is one of the biggest books in the Bible. It has this great collection of prayers and songs and hymns.

[0:58] And these things are used and have been used by God's people throughout thousands of years and thousands of generations. And what they do is God gave them to us to teach us, to teach us many things, who he is and also who we are.

[1:12] But they're not just things that speak to us. The beautiful thing about the Psalm that we talked about last week is the Psalms, they speak for us as well. It gives us language for every life situation, every circumstance that we may face.

[1:26] But it always does this from the framework of being God's people, one of God's own. And that God is for us. And he is our help. And he is our savior.

[1:38] And he is mighty. And he is good. And so the Psalms do that. They help us understand actually the deepest part of who we are. It helps us delve into that, right?

[1:48] It's an encyclopedia of the soul. And let me just talk about the soul for a little bit very briefly. The soul is that part of us that it's like the seedbed of our emotions and our desires.

[2:01] So when we have thoughts, when we actually do the things that we do, that thing first originated in your soul. And your body is this outlet of how that works, right?

[2:13] And so the soul is an important thing. The soul is an important thing for us to know. Like some of the Psalms say, bless the Lord, oh my soul. And it calls us to examine the soul, to look deep within our soul.

[2:24] And honestly, we live in a day and age where we pay more attention to our mind than we do to our soul. Or we keep ourselves so busy that we don't spend any time quieting ourselves enough to get to understand our soul and to listen to our soul and to know our soul.

[2:39] And because of that, the effects are just bad. We don't realize how sick internally we may actually be because we've ignored one of the most important parts of who we are.

[2:53] And here's the thing about the human soul that I want you to know. Nothing affects it more than who you believe God is. What you believe about God is going to have a massive impact on the health of your soul.

[3:08] And I want to say that some of the Psalms really narrowly focus in about particular situations of our life circumstances. And then they kind of reach and step into like, okay, God, here is where I'm at.

[3:19] Here is what's going on. And I need to know this about you in speaking into this situation. And so some of the Psalms are very particular and very narrow in that sense.

[3:30] And it's good for us. It helps us navigate some of the pains and the sorrows that can hit us and the trials of life that can really hit us and really rock our boats, if we're perfectly honest. It gives us soul language.

[3:43] But then there's other Psalms that hit on big themes, big redemptive themes. They kind of zoom out and they give us a big picture of who God is. And they give us a big picture of his redemptive plan and it lifts our eyes.

[3:56] And we need to do that sometimes. We need to lift our eyes out of our circumstances and we need to pop up into heaven and see like, oh man, there is something big and huge going on. God has a big and amazing plan that he's been working out for all time.

[4:08] And we need to make sure we're just, we're not forsaking that because that's good for us too. We need to know the God who is imminent, who is there with us in every step of our lives, no matter what we're facing and that he's there and he's close and he cares and he loves us.

[4:24] But we also at the same time need to know the God who is transcendent, who is greater than every problem we have, whose story is bigger than our story and that he calls us into and that we get to be a part of, right?

[4:39] And so the Psalm 2 is the latter Psalm. It is looking at this great, amazing, transcendent God. So let's jump into it.

[4:50] It says this, Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.

[5:09] He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. It's like God's up there mocking them is what it's saying.

[5:21] And then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury saying, as for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.

[5:32] I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession.

[5:46] You, the king, shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now, therefore, O kings, be wise.

[5:59] Be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled.

[6:17] Blessed are all who take refuge in him. This is God's word. Now, I want to start out with us not thinking about this in our day and age and what that means for us.

[6:32] I want us to step into the reality of that when this psalm was written, it was written to the nation of Israel, right? It was written to an Israelite who knew something, that they were God's people and they were a representation of God's kingdom among the kingdom of the nations, among the kingdoms of the nations.

[6:51] And so Israel was this like heavenly outpost that was there to be God's people, but to show forth to everybody else around them who God was and what he was like.

[7:02] They were meant to be a light in the darkness. But here's the thing about Israel. They were never this superpower. God didn't make them this mighty nation that nobody would be able to stand against or come against.

[7:14] In the Old Testament history of Israel, what it does, it actually shows that Israel was constantly under assault. That the intent of the surrounding nations was a desire to conquer them and to destroy them and to bring them to nothing.

[7:30] And so I want you to think about that. Think about what an Israelite, knowing that psalm and praying that psalm, what they were thinking. We are a nation surrounded by nations that are constantly trying to not make us a nation anymore.

[7:47] They are constantly coming against us and trying to destroy us. And this is their hope. The psalm invites them to consider something.

[7:58] It invites us to consider something. What is really behind everything happening in the world around us? Why do the nations rage? Why do the peoples plot in vain?

[8:09] The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together. Why? And who do they take counsel against? Against the Lord and against his anointed.

[8:23] The word anointed means Messiah. In the Greek, it's rendered Christ. And they say, let us burst their bonds apart. Speaking of God and speaking of the Lord's anointed.

[8:35] Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. Why are there always wars and rumors of wars? Why do the plans and efforts of every leader, every ruler, every nation, why do they fail?

[8:51] Why do nations rise and fall? It says this, there is a war that is going on between two kingdoms. That's what it's implying.

[9:02] The Christian faith says... All right. Let's go back.

[9:14] There is a war going on between two kingdoms. The Christian faith and what the Bible tells us is that God, God created this world to be filled with men and women who loved and worshiped him alone.

[9:27] That was what happened from Genesis when you open it up. It begins that way. And what does he do? He makes man and woman in his image. He says, you are my image bearers, which is a phrase that can easily get lost.

[9:41] The importance and the meaning of it can easily get lost on us. It means like, oh, yeah, we're meant to kind of be like God. But that phrase was pulled from a practice in the ancient world to help us understand more fully God's intent for what he meant that we were going to be his image bearers.

[9:57] See, back then, the borders of a king's territory was marked with an image of that king, whoever was ruling over it. And so when anybody would pass the border from one border into the next, they would see that king's image and they would say, oh, that's who's in charge in this place.

[10:15] And so when God made Adam and Eve and he said, you know what, you are my image bearers. And he puts them in Eden. It's giving us a picture of God's intent and what he has intended for all of history and what he's working out in Project Planet Earth.

[10:34] He's working out his kingdom. He shows us a picture of his kingdom. We are God's people in God's place under God's rule. That's what we are called to be. And then God, his intent wasn't just for Adam and Eve just to stay in Eden, right?

[10:48] He told them, like, I want you to go out and fill the earth, right? Multiply. Go into all the world and exercise dominion over it. And so when the creation would look and they would see God's image bearers, it would behold that God is ruling in this place.

[11:06] These are people under God's rule. We point to him. When we point to his rule, we point to his authority. We point to his kingship and that we are a part of his kingdom. So that was God's intent.

[11:17] But Adam and Eve, right? Right from the get-go, they got deceived by Satan. He got them to believe that there was a better plan. And that plan was not to serve God in the way that God had told them.

[11:28] And so began the uproar and rage of the nations. Adam and Eve set themselves against the Lord's rule. And you know what? Me and you, everyone born, we inherit that same sinful desire.

[11:42] It's just in our DNA. Just like Adam and Eve didn't see God's rule is good, biting that forbidden fruit was their declaration of Psalm 2 verse 3.

[11:56] They were saying, let us throw off God's bonds. Let us cast away his cords from us. Man, let us be free to be our own boss.

[12:07] That's what sin is. That's what the heart of sin is. Sin is rejecting God's rule in his kingdom because it believes the lie that we can just do better without him. That's how it begins. That's how sin begins.

[12:18] But sin goes further. It just doesn't take us out of God's rule. We don't really step into freedom. Actually, what we end up doing is we trade one Lord for another. That's what we end up doing.

[12:31] We don't come under the dominion of our own kingdom and we're on the throne and we get to do whatever we want. We actually come under the dominion of Satan's kingdom where sin controls us.

[12:41] It says, the Bible tells us we are a slave to sin, which means that you don't have the freedom not to sin. And so when we are born, we are born into that kingdom.

[12:56] And that means that we stand against God. When little babies are born, they're born with that DNA, that sinful DNA. And we're raised in that and we give ourselves to that.

[13:06] We stand against God. And here's the thing about sin. It makes God our enemy and it makes us God's enemy. I mean, think how crazy that idea is, right?

[13:19] You would think that making God your enemy is a really bad idea. Like if we really knew who God is, we'd be like, yeah, not a good deal for me at all.

[13:30] I mean, imagine this, like let's say Captain America was like a real person, right? I know he's not, but let's just pretend he is, right? He's strong, he's mighty. Like you would not want to upset him.

[13:42] You'd probably want him to be on your side, right? He's powerful, he's strong. He's like not, he's not the dude you want to be fighting against. You want him to be fighting for you.

[13:53] Man, if God is real, and he is, and if he is almighty like he says he is, then he's stronger than 10,000 Captain Americas. You want him on your side.

[14:07] But sin deceives us and says, actually, nah, we don't. And that's how sin works. It convinces us that God isn't who he claims to be or it just tries to deny his existence altogether.

[14:20] To put it simply, sin de-God's God. That's what it tries to do. It tries to reduce him or reject him. And it tries to convince us that maybe we're on the same level as him or that actually we're better than him.

[14:38] And it's actually what Satan promised from the beginning to Adam and Eve. He said, man, you know, if you disobey God by eating that fruit, like you can become like him. You can exalt yourself.

[14:48] You could raise yourself to be like him. But there's another side of that, and there's another evil side of that. And that is that lie also requires you to have a disdain for who God is.

[15:02] And is there anything more hateful than to disdain a person for what they are? Right? Or to want them not to exist. That's an ugly thing. And that's an ugly sin.

[15:14] And actually, we've seen that sin worked out in humanity throughout history, right? We've seen it in ethnic and racial hatred towards people. That leads to genocide and slavery. Sin doesn't just want to be like God.

[15:28] It makes God an enemy. And if we could, we would eliminate God's existence. Now, in Israel's day, the nations around them tried to do this, right?

[15:38] Every nation in those days worshipped their own special God, right? That was a thing in that history. So these demon gods were believed to govern a specific territory, the territory of that nation that worshipped them.

[15:53] And so every nation, they had this God that was their benefactor that they worshipped and they sacrificed to. And they were hoping that God would then take care of them.

[16:04] This God was supposedly in charge of their particular land to make it fertile so it would yield harvest. For their livestock to multiply and grow.

[16:14] For the wombs of the women to be open and there would be children born, right? That's what they were trying to serve these gods for, to get all these blessings from them. To make life good and better and sustainable.

[16:26] But another part of that is why they worshipped these gods. As they believed, as they went to war against other nations, these gods went with them. And they were believing and hoping that their God was mightier than the gods of the other nation that they were fighting against.

[16:43] And probably that last one is more relative to what this psalm is trying to get at. Like how the gods of the nations were key in determining the outcomes of those battles.

[16:58] So war back then was two nations fighting, yes, but it was more than that. It was the clash of two gods as well. And the outcome determined whose God was superior. Think about what David, when Goliath was mocking the armies of Israel, right?

[17:12] Like David, he got so riled up because he was saying, man, he is defying the armies of the living God. He isn't just defying us as Israel and making us feel bad.

[17:23] He is coming against our God. He is coming against the Almighty and the living God. And how come no one's out there rushing to defeat this giant if God's on our side? Surely we believe that our God is stronger than their God.

[17:37] That's what's going on like underneath the surface of that whole David and Goliath episode. That we see in Scripture. And that victorious nation in those days, the victorious nation, they would not only conquer the nation and take over the territory, they would go in and the losers' gods would be torn down.

[17:57] Their idols would be torn down and their own idols would be set up to be worshipped. And in that way, a God's territory would be expanded. And so the nations came and raged and plotted against the Lord and anointed in many ways.

[18:11] We see this that happened to Israel. Antioch Epiphany is the fourth. A little history lesson. This was like late B.C., just before. Yeah, I think it's like the.

[18:22] Anyways, it doesn't matter the time frame, but it's before Jesus showed up. A couple hundred years before Jesus showed up. But he came in and he conquered Jerusalem. And it set up Zeus in the temple and sacrificed pigs.

[18:34] Right? He came in and he desecrated the temple of God because he knew that was a no-no. He knew that was a way of saying, my God is mightier than your God.

[18:45] And I can do whatever I want in the place that your God is supposed to be ruling and governing. The most holy place that she should be able to defend. And again, in AD 70, another Roman emperor named Titus would desecrate the temple and then destroy it.

[19:01] And he boasted about this. He conquered. He tore the temple down. And he said he killed Israel's God. And this has been happening to the people of God throughout their history.

[19:16] Persecution is a reality. The nations rage and they plot in vain and they come against the Lord's anointed. And they come against his people. They come against his kingdom. And so we as God's people have faced and will face persecution.

[19:29] And that happens in many places around the world today. And that is one of the harsh realities of being God's people. We will be hated. We will be persecuted because they hate our God.

[19:43] And Jesus said this is going to be true. He told his disciples, man, you know what? If the world hates you, just know that they hated me first. And we are Jesus' disciples.

[19:56] His church, we are his proxy people. We represent him to the nations. Just like the Israel of the Old Testament was God's proxy nation to the nations then.

[20:07] But before they hated us, they hated Jesus, right? I mean, they killed him. That's how much they hated him. And sin can take us to that hard line of hatred. But I would say now the most rampant version of sin that we probably experience in the West is in that kind of like physical persecution where our lives are at danger, where we could be put into prison, our rights can be taken away from us.

[20:32] Like our persecution isn't so much somebody raising a hand against us, but it's maybe we're being held in contempt for our faith, right? Our people may consider Christians' belief to be backward, anachronistic, out of touch, perhaps even bigoted and hateful, just really unfit for a modern moment.

[20:55] This is kind of the civilized assault on the church today. And it isn't a physical fight. But it's still, what it does, I would say it's a little more deceptive and a little more sneaky.

[21:08] And even maybe a little more dangerous if we're not aware of it. Because it goes, the assault is at the very heart of our faith and what we believe. It's an assault to get us to compromise.

[21:20] To come to a false table of peace and make concessions. Right? They're saying like, man, these things that the Bible says about who you can sleep with, man, that's like so old and ancient.

[21:35] Like, man, we are way past that. We are so modern. We are so wise now. Like, how can you still hold on to it? You know what? If you just ignore that, you could still love Jesus and be his disciple and follow him.

[21:48] And you know what? It's just that part of the Bible, that part of what God said, that's just a little out of touch with the times. Just ignore that and let it go. Or maybe it's a sense of like, hey, you know what?

[22:03] You need to be worried about your wealth and your own prosperity and making sure that you're good to go. And, man, as long as you're doing that, you don't have to really worry about what's going on around you.

[22:18] The oppression, the poor, the injustice that other people experience. It's no big deal. As long as you're taking care of your little kingdom, everything else is going to be okay. Or maybe it's like, man, you know, you believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that you can get to heaven that way.

[22:36] But you know what? As long as it's okay for you, you know, that you kind of recognize that maybe there's some other roads that lead to heaven as well. We don't want to judge other people for their beliefs. And, you know, you just try to hold, you know, both of those things.

[22:48] There's this constant compromise that is coming at us to, like, take the truth of God's word and the gospel and to dilute it. And this assault, it gets us to hope in the wrong things.

[23:07] And that's, actually, let me say this. Let me say this. That is one way that we're assaulted. There's another type of assault that happens, and it's to get us to put our hope in the wrong things.

[23:18] Right? We want to see, like, man, we want to see God's kingdom come. We want to see righteousness and justice and, you know, all this stuff on earth. And then we get to put our hope in those things coming about by thinking, you know what?

[23:30] The best way to do that is through power. Maybe if we could get the right politicians in a place, maybe if we can get our politics corrected, we can use the government to impose those things.

[23:40] That's going to make it work. Right? And we put our hope in those things. Maybe that way we can kind of get back to the good old days of America.

[23:53] And what's deceptive about the modern civilized assault is that they aren't demanding that we recant our faith in Jesus. They're just asking us to make concessions.

[24:05] They're asking us to get us to put our hope in the wrong thing, the wrong king, the wrong ruler. And we have to be warned about this because every false hope, every concession we make is an assault on God.

[24:25] Because trying to make peace with the world on its terms is not making peace with God. Actually, I want you to consider something the apostle James wrote because it gives us zero wiggle room here.

[24:38] It's very sobering. James 4 verse 4 says this, you adulterous people, do you not know that friendship... He's writing to a church, by the way. He's writing to believers.

[24:49] Okay? This isn't us standing on a street corner yelling at everyone by, yeah, a bunch of hidden pagans, you need to hear about this. This is James writing to a church. You adulterous people.

[25:00] Thank you, James. That's nice. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Enmity is not just like, I don't like that person. Enmity is like, I don't want that person to exist.

[25:14] I want to go to war with that person. Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. That's very sobering.

[25:25] But this doesn't mean that we can't be nice to our neighbors. This doesn't mean that we have to fight back with bullets and guns or swords.

[25:37] James is just saying, don't compromise your faith. Hold fast to it. Hold fast to God. Don't give in to sin. And that is the life of the Christian. The life of the Christian is fighting this fight and enduring to the end.

[25:52] Does that sound exhausting? Probably does. It is. But that is the Christian life. It is stepping into spiritual warfare.

[26:04] It is not, man, Jesus, I want to add you to my life because I think I can get all these cool benefits. Man, being a Christian, following Jesus is a call into war.

[26:16] And that's why the Bible tells us again and again to persevere. And here's the thing. Like, I don't need perseverance when I'm on vacation, right? Like, even with my four kids when they were young, I still didn't need perseverance while I was on vacation.

[26:30] Maybe a little. You don't need perseverance when things are going well, right? When life is good, when it's fun and it's happy. When do you need perseverance?

[26:40] Well, you might need perseverance on vacation if you're at Disney World. You might need some real endurance there. But perseverance, when you think about perseverance and endurance, like, who needs that?

[26:53] It's what athletes need to finish the race. It's what soldiers need to keep fighting. But how does, where does that endurance come from?

[27:05] Well, the Bible tells us that endurance is fueled by hope. Hope is like our spiritual Gatorade, right? When we need a pick-me-up, we need hope. And a soldier will continue to fight when there is hope of victory, right?

[27:21] And for the Christian, our hope is built on the best promise, the most assured victory. Jesus and his kingdom will prevail. That is the good news of the gospel.

[27:33] It doesn't matter what the headlines are saying at any given day. We don't have to freak out. We don't have to despair. We don't have to crawl in the hole and throw them, oh, no, the world's going to hell in a handbasket.

[27:43] We're losing everything. No, no, no, it doesn't matter what the headlines say. Because there is a headline that dominates every headline. Verse 4, he who sits in the heavens laughs.

[27:56] When it talks about the nation's raging, the Greek version of that word rage, because that Hebrew word, it's a word that's used once. You can't even, it's like, it means rage, but it might mean something else.

[28:08] The Greek version of that, when they understood it, imagine a horse neighing and stamping its feet. It's a horse that is like agitated, but it's agitated in a boastful way.

[28:22] It wants to have its way. It doesn't want to listen. It wants to buck whatever is going on. Why do the nations rage? Don't worry about the nations raging. Don't worry about the schemes of man that keep coming out and keep dominating the headlines.

[28:37] The God who sits in heaven ain't shaking in his boots. He's laughing. He's mocking them, holding them in derision.

[28:49] He laughs first, and then he gets angry. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, As for me, I have set my king on Zion.

[29:04] Zion is God's heavenly hill. It's a picture of the city of God, where God's, when we talk about the kingdom of heaven, Zion alludes to that. It's the kingdom, when Jesus returns, is going to come down.

[29:17] He's going to bring it in its fullness. God has set his king on Zion on his holy hill. It's not of this world. It's not a kingdom of this world. Jesus even told that to Pilate.

[29:27] God goes on to say, I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. We know that's talking about Jesus, because God says that about his son.

[29:43] He is the only begotten son of God. The father says, ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.

[29:53] You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Jesus isn't scared of the saber rattling of the nations.

[30:04] They can stand against him, but he will never be defeated. This is our good news. Christians, this is how we walk by faith and in hope. This is our good news.

[30:16] For the Jew in the ancient world, this psalm was a comfort and a hope, regardless of their circumstance. Whatever they were facing, they were besieged by an army, defeated, exiled, wherever they were at.

[30:27] This was their hope. There's a coming Messiah, and he's going to set things to rights one day. And that's what we can hope in. God's anointed, the Christ. He's going to save us.

[30:39] He's going to rescue us. And not only is he going to do that, he's going to restore his kingdom. We're going to be restored back to what God has intended from the beginning. And this Messiah is an unstoppable force.

[30:52] That's what they believed him to be. He is unstoppable. He is undefeated. Because God was with him. His power was on him. He was anointed. He would be full of God's might and his king.

[31:05] And so he would save God's people and bring about peace and prosperity to the nations. And every faithful saint, B.C. or A.D., has held on to that hope because they believed it was true.

[31:18] Nobody could withstand the power of God's anointed king on his great day of victory. And this headline will be true one day. But that gives us strength for today and tomorrow.

[31:32] I want you to consider this. Think about the Persian Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm. I think I was 12 at the time when that happened. And I remember the news.

[31:44] And the U.S. came in and they overwhelmed the Iraqi army. It was a joke. What was the difference? I mean, our guys fought with ferocity.

[31:56] And the Iraqi soldiers, man, they gave up so quickly. What was the difference? Man, the U.S. soldiers, they knew they were more powerful. They knew that victory was ensured.

[32:08] They just had to go fight the fight. The outcome really was already determined before they had even taken a step forward. An American soldier in Desert Storm had zero thought that his side was going to lose.

[32:25] They could already see the headline of victory. It was theirs. It had happened. And what did that confidence, that assurance, what did it do? It gave them strength. It gave them strength for the battle ahead.

[32:37] I want you to consider this. Consider Isaiah 6. Thinking about battles and kings and kingdoms and wars. And how we live in that headline of not yet, but yet it's already true.

[32:48] Isaiah 6 says this. He gets a vision of Jesus. He gets a vision of Jesus. Seated on the throne, high and lifted up. It says, then it says this. The train of his robe filled the temple.

[33:01] And it filled the whole earth. The train of his robe. That's what a king wore. And you know what happened in the ancient days is when one king would conquer another nation, he would take the robe of that king he conquered and he would sew it to his existing robe.

[33:17] And so the longer that king's robe was signified his defeat of other kings and kingdoms. The train of the robe of our king Jesus Christ fills the whole earth.

[33:32] That is the headline. That is the truth. That gives us hope. That makes us persevere to the very end, no matter what we may face as a church.

[33:44] No matter what you may face as a believer. So we hold fast to our faith. We are not those who shrink back. We are not those who compromise.

[33:56] Because Jesus will win. And if that is true, and it is, this changes how we live today. Says in verse 10.

[34:07] Now therefore, O kings, be wise. Be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son. Lest he be angry and you perish in the way.

[34:17] For his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Just a few takeaways here. And the main idea is, because Jesus is who he is, what do we do?

[34:31] How do we respond? We live in surrender to Jesus as our king. Kissing the son is an act of allegiance. It was an act of submission. That's what people, people would come and kiss the king on his hand or his feet or his ring.

[34:45] And it was the act of saying, you're in charge, not me. I'm surrendering to your authority. I'm submitting to your authority. Faith begins with recognizing Jesus as savior who saved you from your sin, but it recognizes him as king.

[34:58] It recognizes him as Lord over your life. And so what do we do as Christians? We live a life of surrender to our king. And it's a growing surrender, right?

[35:10] We don't get it perfectly right when we start, but we grow in that surrender more and more. As Christians, there is a temptation to misunderstand the freedom we have through Jesus, right?

[35:23] I mean, Jesus said, whom the son sets free is free indeed. I mean, we love that. We love the idea of freedom. That freedom isn't, that freedom in Jesus isn't freedom from Jesus. It's actually freedom to live for him.

[35:37] Freedom to love him as our king. And to surrender and submit to him as king. Our freedom as Christians is from the penalty of sin and its power over us.

[35:49] We're no longer slaves to sin. We're slaves to righteousness. And it's not to live for ourselves, but to live for our king. Like it says in verse 11, serve the Lord with fear.

[36:01] And that idea of fear might sound odd to some of us. Because we have a hard time figuring out, like, how does love and fear equate? Like they seem to be at odds with each other.

[36:13] And why would a loving God want us to be afraid of him? But I would argue that not all fear is the same, right? People in an abusive relationship, they could fear their abuser.

[36:25] But that is different to how one might fear the ocean. Both possess power, but we wouldn't call them, they're not equivalent at all. Because the abuser is a power that is spiteful and hateful.

[36:38] And we hate that kind of power. But the ocean, even though it has a power, it invites us to come and to enjoy it. All right? The ocean is fun for fishing and surfing and boating, all kinds of things.

[36:50] But still, we have a healthy fear. We have a healthy reverence because we know what the ocean is capable of. We know its potential power. See the difference?

[37:01] The ocean has an undeniable power, but it's one you can also delight in. The abuser's power doesn't have that. And Jesus is more powerful and more beautiful than the ocean.

[37:15] He is good. And we fear him because we know he is almighty. And we know that he is angry and wrathful towards sin. And that power, his power, it humbles us.

[37:29] It produces a reverence. But you know what? His grace and his mercy and his love at the same time invite us to delight in him. We get to experience his goodness.

[37:40] So we come and we kiss the sun because that is the appropriate response. We humble ourselves and we serve him. And because he is good, we never stop running to him.

[37:53] It says in Psalm 2 verse 12, the very end, blessed are all who take refuge in him. I guess my time's up. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

[38:09] We run to our good God. We run to our good Savior who is king over all. As Philip comes up, we're going to respond. And this is how I want us to respond.

[38:20] I really want us to examine ourselves. I'm going to give us a minute to examine ourselves. But first, I want to ask a few questions. I want to give you a few questions to examine your heart.

[38:32] I want to say this. Is Jesus your king? Examine your heart. Is Jesus your king? Jesus is coming one day to judge the earth.

[38:43] And it says, then every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord. Lord, you may not recognize Jesus as king right now.

[38:54] One day you will. And that day, we will see him as he really is. Not as we may wish him to be. And you and I will stand before his awesome power and might.

[39:06] There is no escape. And I want to ask you, is Jesus your king? What is your hope for that day when you're going to stand before him? Here is your only hope.

[39:18] Is that he came and he died for your sin. He is offering you peace today. And you can take his peace offering by believing in his death on the cross.

[39:30] That is your peace offering. The terms are simple. Believe on Jesus as savior and king. And repent of your sins against him.

[39:40] So that's examination number one. Is Jesus your king? Here's question number two. Are you living like Jesus is your undefeatable king?

[39:55] Are you living like that? Are you living in the light of the truth that he is the undefeatable king? Are you being swept up in the headlines of the news every single day?

[40:07] Are you dismayed by the nation's raging and plotting? Are you living toward, or are you living toward the reality that King Jesus is going to win? That the nations are his inheritance.

[40:19] That God has given to him. And you know what that inheritance is? It's people. Right? It's the gospel going to the nations. It's God gathering souls and people to himself through salvation.

[40:33] And in that way his kingdom advances. And it's a kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy, he says. His people. His place.

[40:44] Under his rule. Let's pray. I just want you to pray silently. Examine your hearts. Rolexes.

[40:55] Jesus, I pray for every person in the room.

[41:39] At the heart of this is faith. I pray you would give us the faith that we lack. Faith that you are a good Savior and an almighty King.

[41:53] Amen. We're going to continue to respond as Christians by taking communion. And if you would stand with me, we're going to stand and take this together.

[42:08] And we eat this by faith and we really believe it means something. We don't do this because it's what good religious people do. We do this because, man, this is a part of God's grace to us.

[42:21] This is how we encounter his goodness. Because it brings us back and it reminds us what it took for us to be taken from an enemy of God to being on his side.

[42:34] To being his sons and his daughters. To Christ being our King. Jesus is the King over all kings. God's only Son. Who suffered in our place.

[42:45] Satisfying the wrath of God against our sin. And through his death and resurrection, we are brought into his kingdom. And as we eat and drink his sacrifice, remember what he did, but also remember the most important headline.

[43:02] He is coming again. He is coming again. He will ever be undefeated. Amen. His body broken. His blood shed for us.

[43:13]  Let's drink to our amazing King. And eat to our amazing King. Amen.