All Creatures of our God and King

Introduction

What is your favorite thing that you own? Now we have to think a little, don’t we? For some you might immediately think of something that might be a keepsake or something that you received from a loved one or family member that has special significance to it. For others, maybe it’s a pet or a possession. Some might say it’s money or something of monetary value. Others might think of something immaterial. Maybe you’re having difficulty wrapping your head around such a question… Think of it in a different light, this time. About a decade ago, a photographer with the name of Foster Huntington launched a website asking people this question: If your house were burning, what would you grab? In the first few months of the websites posting, he received thousands of answers

One husband, one son, and three cats

My Princess Bride DVD

A few packs of Green Tea in case I get thirsty

Wallet

Purse

Journal

House Key (I thought this was interesting because the house is after all… burning)

Flip-flops and sunscreen, because if my house burns down, I’m moving to the beach

As people continued to post, Huntington looked at his original list of 18 items, and within the year, he whittled the list down to 2 irreplaceable things. What this question does is it forces you to differentiate between wants and needs whenever it comes to our possessions and belongings. You and I only have room for so many things in our homes, though. Even if we had the largest house in the world, with all the money this world affords, we could only accumulate so much. There would still be many things that would not belong to us as people. This is not so with God. God is the Creator of all things and this means that He owns all things. As the hymn Our God is So Big states, “the mountains are his, the valleys are his, the stars are his handiwork too.”

Abraham Kuyper once said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

If the universe were on fire, what would God save? Certainly this isn’t true… But, in a fallen world we see that things are in trouble. Into this fallen world, God has sent His Son on a rescue and redemption mission to seek and save the lost. This morning as we continue our study in Psalms, we’re in Psalm 24 and we’re going to see today how God not only creates and owns all things, but that God made a way for people like you and me to brought into His forever family through the work of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Psalm 24 CSB

A psalm of David. 1 The earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants, belong to the Lord; 2 for he laid its foundation on the seas and established it on the rivers. 3 Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? 4 The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not appealed to what is false, and who has not sworn deceitfully. 5 He will receive blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. 6 Such is the generation of those who inquire of him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah 7 Lift up your heads, you gates! Rise up, ancient doors! Then the King of glory will come in. 8 Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle. 9 Lift up your heads, you gates! Rise up, ancient doors! Then the King of glory will come in. 10 Who is he, this King of glory? The Lord of Armies, he is the King of glory. Selah

So, who is this King of Glory? None other than our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Let’s give Him thanks right now and pray.

Our King Creates (1-2)

Have you ever tried to imagine the creation of the universe? It’s hard for us to comprehend the idea that there was previously nothing except God and then there was everything! Consider how remarkable this is though, that everything belongs to our Lord. You will never meet a person who was not made by your Creator. Whether we’re doing mission work in Salem, Springfield, or Chimaltenango Guatemala, we will never encounter a person who was not created by God and formed by Him in the womb as Psalm 139 tells us. This means that as we reflect on the rest of this text, we as Christians have an obligation and duty to love the inhabitants of this world if for no other reason than because we all belong to God and have been made in His image. As we think about this as well, Psalm 24:1-2 tells us that everything in this world belongs to the Lord - not ourselves! People can fight and hold wars over territories and plots of land… but it doesn’t change the fact that this world belongs to the Lord. Homeowners, this is true of your home - your house is temporarily in your name but it belongs to the Lord. Parents, your children are in your home for a period of years and they’ll always be your baby, but your children belong to the Lord. What a humbling thought, isn’t it? With Isaiah on the way in a month’s time or so, that’s been on my mind often… In the book of 1 Samuel we see that Hannah for years and years couldn’t have a child. She prayed to God and said that if she had a son, she would give him to the Lord. As she and her husband prayed, God eventually answered their prayers and gave them a son. Hannah declared that the boy belongs to the Lord - parents, God gives them to us for a period of time, maybe even many many years… but they’re ultimately His. He is their Creator as Psalm 24 reminds us. Some don’t agree with this as they think that they’re self made and that God had nothing to do with the process…

It does not matter whether one believes Psalm 24:1 or not, it does not change Psalm 24:2. The earth is God’s - because God created it. We live in a world that has a million different views and beliefs surrounding god and creation and truth. In such a world of subjectivity and feelings, it can be hard for rational, objective statements and truths to be tolerated. In fact, on Wednesday we started making our way through a film called American Gospel: Christ Crucified as it unpacks how many people used to profess faith in Jesus, but now they don’t and many are in this boat because they don’t like the exclusive statements found in the Bible. Think of some of the exclusive claims the Bible makes:

Psalm 24:1-2 tells us that God created the whole world and that everything belongs to God. That’s an exclusive statement. Whether one believes in Islam, Buddhism, or Atheism, the God of Scripture rules and reigns today. You can’t mix the Bible with another view point or religion and call it good because the Bible makes exclusive claims that cannot be reconciled with modern cultural beliefs.

What about John 14:6?

John 14:6 CSB

6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

No one comes to the Father except through Jesus! Do you think our culture likes this verse? Absolutely not! In fact, I’ve seen on multiple occasions where simply quoting this verse gets one in trouble and labeled as being “judgmental.” This is what Jesus Himself said - it’s an exclusive road. Now, all are welcomed, but all must deny theirselves and follow Christ alone. There aren’t a dozen roads that lead to God - by His grace, He gave us 1.

What about Ephesians 2:8-9?

Ephesians 2:8–9 CSB

8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— 9 not from works, so that no one can boast.

Does this sound exclusive? You’d better believe it is. We live in a world where people want credit for their own actions so that they can get a pat on the back and receive some social media praise… but salvation is not something that we earn through our hard work and determination. Salvation is exclusively found through faith in Jesus Christ - not from our works and not from our last names and not from where we grew up in Missouri or the Bible Belt or the United States or the Western Hemisphere… none of that saves, faith in Jesus alone does, it’s exclusive.

These exclusive claims found in Scripture make some people unnerved, but it doesn’t change them at all. The earth is God’s - nothing will change that. Why? Because God created the earth, by Himself, for Himself, out of nothing. Let’s unpack what our King has done in Scripture

John 1:1–3 CSB

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.

All things were created through Him - the Word, meaning Jesus.

Colossians 1:15–16 CSB

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through him and for him.

Everything was created by Him and for Him - meaning again, Jesus. Why does this matter for us this morning to see that Jesus made the universe? 2 things

Jesus has no beginning (He is not Himself created, but eternal like the Father)

Psalm 24 is about Jesus

This will help us better understand the sections that follow as there is only one person who can ascend to the Lord’s presence and there is only one person who deserves the title King of Glory.

Our King Communes (3-6)

Next, we see that God not only creates, but He communes and dwells with His people. We might wonder, though, how exactly does this happen? If you look into other religious systems, often times the gods of these groups live on mountain peaks and if humans work really hard and climb up high enough, they can reach their gods. Further, because the gods supposedly exist on top of a mountain, there are multiple ways to get up to them. About 8 years ago there were 2 climbers preparing themselves to do the impossible: climb up El Capitan in Yosemite National Park with no climbing aids. There is a stretch of this particular rock formation called the Dawn Wall and it’s over 3,000 feet high and composed of 32 sections which are rated among the hardest in the world by themselves… much less the entire 3,000 feet. Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell took 19 days to scale this wall, sometimes only gaining a few feet a day and losing skin and blood to the razor sharp rocks each step of the journey… but eventually they reached the top and conquered what many believed to be impossible. This is how some in our world view heaven. It might be really hard, it might even seem impossible, but with enough hard work, determination, and dedication, you can climb the mountain and reach the top.

Is this what we see in the Bible? Do we see a treasure map of sorts in our Bibles with dozens of ways to get to God? Before you laugh, if you have a physical Bible turn to the back of it and you’ll find some pretty cool maps! Of course that’s not what Scripture teaches - we are not our own Savior. What we see instead is that the God of the Bible created the world and loved the world so much that He sent His Son to this earth in order to save sinners like you and me. We see that Jesus came from heaven to earth to commune and save us by ascending back to glory.

How does the death and resurrection of Jesus matter for us today? What is the big deal about Jesus ascending to the mountain of the Lord or to His presence? How did this happen? We see that the person who stands before God and worships Him in His presence is the one who has 4 things:

Clean hands

A pure heart

Free from idolatry

Free from lies

We shouldn’t have to dwell on these for too long in order to see that we’re immediately in trouble here if we have to make it up the mountain ourselves. Maybe we think that we can kind of fake it until we make it, though, and work really hard to do these things ourselves. The first statement in Psalm 24:4 is that the person must have clean hands. Whenever our hands get dirty, we know that if we go to the bathroom and wash our hands for at least 30 seconds with warm water and soap that they will be nice and clean - maybe we think that this is the same way. We have sinned, but if we go to the bathroom or in this case, maybe church, and come for an hour and a half each week then we’ll leave with clean hands. The literal idea here is not just of cleaning through works or sacrifice… but of being completely innocent. Having innocent hands that are free from guilt in general. Suddenly our self-help strategy goes out the window and we’re up a creek without a paddle. How could we possibly be innocent and have innocent hands? By having a pure heart.

We look around the world and we see hands that are not clean but instead are stained by sin. We see this in our own lives and we see it in the lives of others that we know and those that we see in the media - we see a world that is marred by sin in action. What is the reason for this? Sin doesn’t start with the hand, it doesn’t start with the tongue, it starts with the heart.

Think of how pervasive sin is in our lives. Look at this bottle of water - it’s nice and full… what’s going to happen whenever I tilt it like this? Water will spill out! Why? Some of you will say that the reason why is because I tilted the bottle and gravity works in such a way that water falls out of bottles whenever they are tilted past a certain point! But there is another correct answer to this question. Water came out of the bottle because there was water inside of it whenever it was tilted. See, if I had an empty water bottle then I can tilt it even more than the other one and nothing will come out because it’s, well, empty! So look at yourself in the mirror real quick here… and let’s do it by thinking of the author of this Psalm, King David. Why would David do what he did with Bathsheba? He knew what was right and what was wrong - he knew God’s law - he knew the rules! Maybe he would say something like this, “I sinned because I was tempted” I was shaken up and tilted a little bit like this bottle. This is what we do whenever we sin - we’re so good at coming up with a reason behind it, “I didn’t mean to… I was just really stressed out. I was tired. I was sick. I was raised differently and that was acceptable in my home.” We were the bottle that was tilted but we blame the problem on being tilted because of our situation whenever the problem actually lies beneath the surface… Do you remember what David said about his own sin in Psalm 51? He said that the fault lies not in the temptation but with himself. He says this

Psalm 51:5 CSB

5 Indeed, I was guilty when I was born; I was sinful when my mother conceived me.

Why did David sin? Not just because he was tempted because we live in a fallen world… but also because David understood that inside himself was a sinful fallen nature. Not only did he sin… but he is a sinner. The reason that water (sin) came out of his life was because there was water (sin) inside of him - ouch!

What is the fundamental problem with Psalm 24 saying that only one with clean hands and a pure heart can ascend to the presence of the Lord? We fail on every front! Meaning that not only do we not get to God’s presence or stand and worship Him but we also don’t receive blessing and righteousness from the Lord - meaning that we’re left facing His wrath and judgment because of our sin. See, we’re all stuck at the bottom of this spiritual mountain with no route up and nothing to use to climb or fly or run or jump. After all, we’re dead in our sins and trespasses.

But God… He sent His Son to be this person. The one with clean hands and a pure heart who never appealed to what is false or swear deceitfully. 1 Peter 2:22

1 Peter 2:22 CSB

22 He did not commit sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth;

So what does Jesus do? Not only does He scale the mountain - He brings His people with Him as Hebrews 4 tells us

Hebrews 4:14–16 CSB

14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens—Jesus the Son of God—let us hold fast to our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. 16 Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.

Jesus gives us blessing and righteousness that is not ours through merit - but through mercy

So what must we do in order to approach the throne of God above? We must be people who seek first His face and understand that we have nothing to bring to the table. Some say that this sounds depressing and hopeless - I love you enough to shoot straight with you, before Jesus Christ saves us we are in a hopeless situation based on our own works. A message that puffs us up based on self and shares that we can scale the mountain on our own isn’t true to God’s Word and it neglects to share the severity of our sin in the eyes of a holy God. To share that we can come to God but not that we must repent of our sins is to only share half the gospel. Alistair Begg shares, “Only half a gospel makes half a Christian and that’s no Christian at all!”

FBC Salem, we must be a people who understand our utter need for God’s intervention in our lives individually and corporately because we are straying, sinful, stubborn sheep in need of a soul satisfying, sin shattering Savior. This is what Psalm 24 tells us we have in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We must see our need and then we must seek His face. When this happens, whenever we repent and follow Him, then we receive the blessing of righteousness that we don’t deserve. Then we are able to come into His presence and stand before Him and worship Him. Not because of our goodness, but because of His amazing grace! Isn’t it a blessing that we have a King who chooses to Commune with people like us?

Our King Conquers (7-10)

After a king would win a victory in Bible times, they would often parade through the streets of the capital city and their citizens would come out and celebrate the momentous occasion. The closest thing that we could use to relate to this type of event is whenever a team wins a championship, like the Kansas City Chiefs winning the Super Bowl a few months ago and hosting a massive parade in Kansas City that saw nearly 1 million people attend along the parade route to cheer on and celebrate their team. We all like celebrations! We all like rejoicing after something exciting happens. What we see at the conclusion of this chapter is a song of celebration but it might be a little hard for us to understand the song part. In 1 Chronicles 13-15, we see that David and the Israelites bring the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem, the capital city. This likely is the immediate background of this song starting in verse 7. The Ark of the Covenant represented the presence of God with His people - so as the Ark came into the city, the people cried out that the King of Glory was coming in. This is a song of celebration, but again, because of the sins of the people, it was still a veiled celebration.

Think of another celebration that involves the capital of Israel and a person coming in to a warm welcome by the people… The triumphal entry as Jesus comes into Jerusalem on a donkey and is greeted by cheers because this is a prophecy concerning the King of Israel in Zechariah 9:9

Zechariah 9:9 CSB

9 Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout in triumph, Daughter Jerusalem! Look, your King is coming to you; he is righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

The people celebrated Jesus on Psalm Sunday because they believed that this meant the King of Glory was entering to rule and to reign! How right they were, but how wrong they reacted that week as 5 days later, Jesus would be crucified after being celebrated. So, what are these verses really about? What does it mean that the King of Glory will come in after being mighty in battle? What battle did Jesus win? Ah - the battle again our foe of sin and death. This is a song with an immediate context that points us to Jesus as He ascended the mountain of the Lord and took His place at the right hand of the Father as Hebrews tells us.

Paul Washer: “The angels must have been saying, “Who dares demand these doors be opened?” After some time, one brave angel musters the confidence to yell from inside, “Who is this King of glory?” And with one resounding authoritative heavenly voice, Jesus cried out Psalm 24:8 - The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle!

Angels again - Who is this King of Glory?’

The Lord of Armies - the King of Glory

And the gates were opened. And the King of Glory, the Lord of Hosts, took his seat upon His throne. He received His inheritance promised to Him in Psalm 2 as the nations belong to the Lord. And He rules victoriously from that same throne today. The gates of Heaven are presently open to all who deny themselves and desire to follow after the King of Glory. He sits on his throne and He rules the earth with truth and grace - as the kids song says, “He’s got the whole world in His hands… because He created it, He sustains it, and He has conquered His enemies.” The earth belongs to the Lord. He rules, He is King.

But there is another gate that isn’t narrow and squeaky… it is well greased and used often because it is well traveled and very broad. This gate leads to a completely different path and it looks amazing. It looks like it leads up the mountain after all and it promises its crowd acceptance and happiness. But friend, this other gate is as crooked as it can be. It might be well greased and look nice on the outside. It might make grandiose promises and look inviting. But make no mistake about it - it will not lead you to eternal celebration because it cannot provide you with celebration because what is awaiting through this second gate is eternal condemnation.

It’s path is destruction and it’s way is death - do not walk down it another day! Come to Jesus. He’s thrown the gates open wide and He simply says come home. Repent of your self reliance and sinful ways and I will save you and I will give to you eternal celebration that this world cannot provide and it also cannot touch.

Satan loves false hope, pride, self-centeredness, and a worry-free life. He loves the promise of the American Dream of getting all that you can, canning all that you get, and sitting on the can until you can’t anymore. Why? Because that dream is horizontal. It’s centered around self… The “god” of this world isn’t equal to God, he isn’t a rival to God, he might be worshiped as a god by some, but all he does is deceive people to follow self instead of their Sustainer. What we all need, friends, is to be reminded today of the truth. Not what is popular. Not what we might feel… what is objective, true, and unchangeable. The World Belongs to our God! We Belong to our God! In light of this essential truth from Psalm 24, let’s seek to apply this in 3 ways depending on where we’re at

The Earth Belongs to the Lord, Walk Accordingly

Christian, Your Victory Belongs to the Lord, Worship Accordingly

Non-Christian, Your Life Belongs to the Lord, Weigh it Accordingly

There can be no neutrality about an empty tomb. Jesus, this King of Glory, demands a response from you. We can’t say He’s just a nice teacher, or that He’s a good person, and that He doesn’t matter or impact us today. He hasn’t left that option available to us. Our life in this world is a vapor in comparison to eternity - we must pay attention and weigh Scripture accordingly. The Bible tells us this

Philippians 2:9–11 CSB

9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess… Don’t put that off today. This earth belongs to Jesus. Your life belongs to Jesus. The reason that you and I are here this morning is because of Jesus Christ as He created us and He sustains us each second of every day. Today, understand Who He is as the Creator, Savior, and King. Today, repent of your self-righteousness and sin, and ask Jesus to forgive you and to change you and commit to follow after Him each day of your life as a new creation and experience peace and the promise of victory unlike anything this world can offer. Only those with clean hands and a pure heart are welcomed into the presence of God - we can’t get there by ourselves… We need help because the world is on fire due to sin. God has sent His Son to seek and save us from the flames out of His love for us. What have you done with this Creator and Savior? Scripture tells us to turn from our own ways and to seek His face. Turn your eyes upon Jesus today - He’s still in the business of saving sinners like you and me.