Praise Trustworthy King Jesus

INTRODUCTION

Good morning, Soteria! I trust you had a great week with friends and family as we celebrated the birth of our Lord Jesus. Christmas is a special time of year.

Christmas Tree still up.

How many of you still have your Christmas tree up?

We still have our Christmas tree up at home right now. And it’s not because we forgot to take it down. Our Christmas tree is up because of a little known fact that the 12 days of Christmas do not refer to the days leading up to Christmas. No. The twelve days of Christmas begin the day after Christmas. So if you’re still listening to Christmas music, don’t feel judged by me this morning. I’ll support you in that choice.

But since we are still in the 12 days of Christmas, I decided to extend the “Kingly-ology” sermon series into today.

The past three Sundays, Pastor Mike walked us through the family tree of Jesus that we read in the book of Matthew. Jesus’ lineage was full of highs and lows. The family line of Jesus was riddled with dysfunction, sin, murder, close-calls, and more. But God was faithful to send Jesus, born as a baby, to be the promised King who sits on David’s throne. And we can praise God for his sovereignty.

But today, instead of focusing on the family line of King Jesus. We are going to look at the quality of Jesus’ reign. What is his kingship like? What characterizes King Jesus? How does he operate as king? How do we respond to him as King?

So open your Bible’s to Psalm 146 this morning. In Psalm 146 much of Jesus’ reign is characterized. Furthermore, Psalm 146 details what a proper response to King Jesus ought to be.

And what we are going to see from Psalm 146 is this:

BIG IDEA: Trustworthy King Jesus is worthy of your praise (v. 10).

Now you might be scratching your head right now. You might be saying, “Josh… isn’t this a Psalm? Where in the world do you see the kingship of Jesus?”

Well hold on for a minute, I’ll show you how I got there as we go through the passage. So let’s jump in to Psalm 146 and see. The Psalm opens up with a call to worship. We read,

Psalm 146:1–2 (CSB)

Hallelujah!

My soul, praise the Lord.

I will praise the Lord all my life;

I will sing to my God as long as I live.

The Psalm opens up with a call to worship. The psalmist calls himself to praise God, and he calls us to praise God. And what we see in these first couple of verses is that we must choose to praise God.

1. Choose to praise God (vv. 1-2).

Praising God is a choice. And we want this to be true of us, right? God has done so much for us through Jesus. And when we believe that, we want to be the kind of people who “praise the Lord all our lives.”

But that’s harder to do than we would like care to admit. Just over the past week, have their been times where you didn’t praise God? There are so many reasons that we don’t praise God.

Sometimes we are too self-centered to praise God. We think we have things figured out. So we become too proud to praise God.

Sometimes we are so anxious or stressed that we get tunnel vision and only focus on alleviating our worries.

Sometimes we are simply unaware of how mightily God is working in our lives.

Sometimes we are ungrateful because we keep comparing ourselves to others.

Sometimes we are so focused on our problems that we fail to focus on praising God.

And sometimes we might feel distant from God for one reason or another. And because we don’t feel close to him, we don’t praise him.

There are so many reasons that we don’t praise God.

So while the psalm starts off triumphantly, “Hallelujah! I will praise the Lord all my life!” It also starts off longingly, “My soul, praise the Lord!”

The psalm doesn’t ignore the difficulties of life that we struggle with. Instead what the psalmist wants us to see is that God is greater than any difficulty we struggle with. So while we might be distracted, we might fail, we might not want to, the psalmist chooses to praise God.

Preparing for this sermon over the past couple of weeks has been a kick in the pants for me. Over the past two weeks, one of our kids has been very sick. We had to take him to the ER and his pediatrician a couple of times because he was struggling to breath and had a terrible cough. And it wasn’t until yesterday that he even started to feel better.

And due to the stress of the situation, I became so focused on trying to just make him comfortable that I went chunks of time without any recognition of praise to God. I started comparing myself to others and became angry and ungrateful because I had plans for all the fun things we were going to do for Christmas. And then we couldn’t do them because he was so sick and miserable.

So as I have been reading and preparing for this sermon, there have been times where it has been difficult to praise God. But it is a choice to praise God! And that choice primarily rests in where we place our trust. When trials arise, we like to trust in whatever we think is going to solve our problems the fastest. And that’s what the psalmist brings out in verses three and four, look at what these verses say:

Psalm 146:3–4 (CSB)

Do not trust in nobles,

in a son of man, who cannot save.

When his breath leaves him,

he returns to the ground;

on that day his plans die.

Turning from his daily choice to praise God, the psalmist now turns to the expression of our praise—trust. The psalmist tells us to not place our ultimate trust in our limited, human leaders.

2. Don’t trust limited leaders. (vv. 3-4).

Now here’s what I’m not saying. I am not saying that you should not trust doctors, lawyers, police officers, presidents, and others. However, we shouldn’t place our trust ultimately in them. Some day, no doctor will be able to heal you. No President is going to turn America into a some utopia. No lawyer can mend a broken relationship.

Everyone who claims that they can solve your problems, can never put an end to all of them. But there is a God who can. And in verse 5, the Psalmist urges us to place our trust in him.

Psalm 146:5–6 (CSB)

Happy is the one whose help is the God of Jacob,

whose hope is in the Lord his God,

the Maker of heaven and earth,

the sea and everything in them.

He remains faithful forever,

3. Trust our life-giving God (vv. 5-6).

Our God is the Creator. And because he has the power to give life, to speak the universe into existence, he should be the source of our ultimate trust and hope. God made the sun, God made the sea, God made the birds, and God made you and me. At his word, light came forth. At his word, oceans roar. At his word, the earth rotates around the Sun.

And that God is faithful. “He remains faithful forever.” He can be trusted. He is worthy of praise. So we trust and praise our life-giving God. But we also trust our life-saving God.

4. Trust our life-saving God (vv. 7-9).

Psalm 146:7–9 (CSB)

executing justice for the exploited

and giving food to the hungry.

The Lord frees prisoners.

The Lord opens the eyes of the blind.

The Lord raises up those who are oppressed.

The Lord loves the righteous.

The Lord protects resident aliens

and helps the fatherless and the widow,

but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

Our God is not distant. He is not a God who treats his creation like a wind-up toy. God didn’t wind up the crank at Creation and then let it go. No, God is active in not just giving life, but also in saving it.

God executes justice better than any judge. Even when he frees prisoners.

He provides more food than any charity.

He is a perfect Optometrist.

He is a wonderful counselor who encourages the discouraged.

God is active in our world, and God is active in our lives. And more than that, verse ten says that he is King over all of it. Psalm 146:10

Psalm 146:10 (CSB)

The Lord reigns forever;

Zion, your God reigns for all generations.

Hallelujah!

The Lord is King forever. He is greater than any nobles we may put our trust in. As Creator, he is a powerful king who can be trusted. As a present king, he knows exactly what we need.

BIG IDEA: Trustworthy King Jesus is worthy of your praise (v. 10).

So where is King Jesus in this Psalm? When you look at who God is described to be and what he is said to do, you can’t help but see Jesus in it!

Jesus made everything.

Colossians 1:16 (CSB)

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.

Jesus executed justice for the exploited. (Driving out the moneychangers from the temple)

Mark 11:15–17 (CSB)

They came to Jerusalem, and he went into the temple and began to throw out those buying and selling. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves, and would not permit anyone to carry goods through the temple. He was teaching them: “Is it not written, My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of thieves!”

Jesus gave food to the hungry. (Feeding of the 5,000 and 4,000)

Jesus liberated prisoners. (Isaiah’s prophecy)

Jesus opened the eyes of the blind. (Healing of the blind man)

Jesus raised up the oppressed. (The Samaritan Woman)

Jesus loved the righteous.

Matthew 12:46–50 (CSB)

While he was still speaking with the crowds, his mother and brothers were standing outside wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”

He replied to the one who was speaking to him, “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” Stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Jesus protected resident aliens. (Jesus healing the daughter of a Canaanite)

Jesus helped the fatherless and the widows. (Jesus raising the Son of a widow)

Jesus frustrated the ways of the wicked. (Jesus casting out demons)

CONCLUSION

And in verse ten, we see that Jesus is King. He is a trustworthy king. And he is worthy of praise.

BIG IDEA: Trustworthy King Jesus is worthy of your praise.

As Creator, he is a powerful king who can be trusted. As a present king, he knows what we need. His word is true, his word is sure. You can trust King Jesus. And he is worthy of your praise.

And so we cry out with the Psalm, “Hallelujah!”

CONNECT CARD: What trial is it difficult for you to trust King Jesus with?