The King Who Pleads For Us
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The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies! Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power, in holy garments; from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
We sang this morning:
Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea
A great High Priest Whose name is love
Who ever lives and pleads for me
Brothers and sisters, we have a High Priest in heaven, Jesus Christ.
We sang this morning:
To the One Who is seated on the throne
To the One Who reigns forever and ever
Be all the glory
Be all the honor and the praise
Brothers and sisters, we have a King in heaven, Jesus Christ.
Welcome - series on statement of faith
Last week we looked at the atoning death of Christ, and His resurrection which confirmed what He accomplished through His death.
And though that is the heart of the Gospel - the death and resurrection of Christ - that isn’t the whole Gospel.
Because there’s more good news! Though Christ completed what He came to do and won salvation for all who believe, His work continues. His ministry continues.
His ministry for us continues.
Right now, Christ sits at the right hand of the Father. And He has something to offer for us as our High Priest. He intercedes on our behalf before the Father.
No one comes to the Father but by Jesus Christ.
He is the door.
He is the way.
He is the mediator of the New and better Covenant we enter into through faith in Him.
But He is also King. He came as one of us. Though He was God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He emptied Himself of His rights as God, taking on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man.
And in that human form, He humbled Himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Therefore, God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name.
Because after He died and was raised for our justification, Christ ascended on high, now sits on His throne as King of all, and as High Priest of His people.
That is the next statement in our statement of faith:
9. We believe that God’s Son physically ascended to his Father's right hand and is enthroned in glory, where he intercedes on behalf of his people and rules over all things for their sake.
Just like we can’t exclude Christ’s perfect life from our understanding of the Gospel, neither can we exclude His ascension and current ministry as our High Priest.
We read in the book of Hebrews:
we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
As we have seen: the tabernacle, the sacrifices and offerings, the Law itself - these all serve to reveal God and point us to Jesus Christ, God in the flesh.
And just like last week, I want us to think for a minute about Who Christ is because it is so amazing that He did what He did considering He is Who He is.
And it is just as amazing to think about what He now does, considering Who He now is.
Because He intercedes for us. He ministers as our High Priest - the mediator between man and God. He offers gifts. He already offered Himself as a gift according to the Law - He is our perfect sacrifice - but now He offers them as our High Priest in heaven.
And the most amazing part of that, is that He does that while He reigns as King. The King is our Priest!
The King of kings, who reigns over all things, He ministers on our behalf.
He sits as God’s right hand, with His mighty scepter in His hand - and yet He is a priest forever. But not like the priests of the old covenant - He is the mediator of a new and better covenant.
And just like God the Son had to come as man, and had to live a perfect life, and had to die, and had to be raised in order to accomplish salvation for us - because these were all promised in the Old Testament…
…so too, He has to reign and He has to be our priest to continue to save us. To continue to work on our behalf.
And to do that, He had to ascend back to heaven and be enthroned in glory.
⬇️Christ Himself said this. All of this. That the Old Testament predicted this of the Messiah, and that He was the fulfillment of that prediction.
And He used Psalm 110 - our passage this morning - to prove it.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record Jesus’ reference to this Psalm.
Luke places it after Jesus’ teaching on the resurrection to the Sadducees. He says that God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living, and we’re told that the Sadducees dared not to ask Him any questions after that.
Then, Jesus adds in a question about this Psalm.
In Mark, we are told that Jesus taught about this Psalm in the Temple, right after teaching the scribes about the great commandment. If you know the story, a scribe asked Him what the greatest commandment is, and Jesus said it was to love God and love your neighbor.
And we read that after He said this, none of the scribes dares to ask Him any more questions.
And then Jesus, still in the Temple, adds in His question about Psalm 110, and we are told that the great throng of people there heard Him gladly.
In Matthew’s Gospel, we also read that following the teaching of the great commandment Jesus talks about this Psalm, but this time we see He addresses it to the Pharisees:
Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet” ’? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
So we get a full picture of this event across the three Gospel accounts. Jesus is in the Temple, there is a great crowd there to hear Him teach, and there are Sadducees, scribes, and Pharisees all there questioning Him, and with His answers and with this question about Psalm 110, the questions ended once and for all.
Now, Jesus had many encounters with the Jewish leaders - men who knew the Scriptures - men who were devout in their faith, as they understood it. And many times, He would answer their objections to His teaching or His claims about Himself, and they would regroup and then refocus their efforts and try to disprove Him again or catch Him in His words.
Here, Jesus puts a question to them - which He often did - but after this question, there were no more efforts to disprove Him. There were no more attempts to catch Him in His words. No one dared ask Him anymore questions at all.
And the next thing we read about the religious leaders - in all three Gospels - is that they gathered together with the high priest to plot Jesus’ arrest and execution.
This exchange with the Jewish leaders about Psalm 110 is the last interaction Jesus has with them until He is betrayed and arrested.
⬇️Why?
What is Jesus saying here that was the last straw, so to speak?
Well, we have been talking about the Person of Christ over the last few weeks. How He is 100% man and 100% God. And note that I say “is” not “was.” Because, as we’ll see, He is still 100% man and 100% God.
And we have focused on the absolute need for God to come as a man, to live perfectly as a man. To die as a man, and be raised as a man. We have focused a lot on the physical, human nature of Christ so we can see that He came as a human, and why He came as human.
But it is the other part of His nature Jesus is bringing in here. Yes, the Christ - the Messiah - was to be the son of David. He was to be the physical offspring of David. That much the Pharisees had right.
But there was more to it than that. After all, the Messiah is David’s Son, and yet David calls Him Lord.
Jesus quotes from Psalm 110. David writes:
The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”
This is the king of God’s people - perhaps the most revered king in all of history - calling someone else Lord.
And there are two different Hebrew words translated “Lord” here. He says “YHWH says to Adonai” - The Lord says to my Lord.
YHWH, of course, is the revealed, covenant name of God.
And adonai means lord and is used of kings or of masters. But it’s used hundreds of times in the Old Testament to refer to God, and almost 100 of those uses are in the Psalms - especially by David.
David is saying that God is addressing God, here.
And by invoking this Psalm in His question, Jesus is saying that the Messiah would be God, and reign with God in heaven. That He would sit at the right hand of God - reigning as God.
Like I said last week, Jesus claimed to be God multiple times. And this is one of those times. And it caused the religious leaders to put Him to death, because they understood exactly what He was saying.
And that’s what we spoke about last week, the atoning death of Christ. And then we spoke of the resurrection of Christ - the proof that He is Who He says He is. And Who He says He is, is God.
Christ - 100% God, Who also became 100% man in the incarnation. He came physically and took on humanity.
Christ lived as one of us, physically.
Christ died as one of us, physically.
Christ rose in that same humanity, physically.
And Christ ascended in that same humanity, physically.
And Christ now reigns in that same humanity, physically.
He sits at God’s right hand.
So let’s not forget that when Christ took on humanity - He became just like us. And we will always be human. We will be physical after our resurrection - whether the resurrection unto life or the resurrection unto death.
I know we read the Gospels and since all of it happened in the past, we think of Christ as a human in the past. We think of the incarnation as a past event.
But He is a human in the present.
Right now, in heaven, there is a man Who is also God.
As Pastor David said two weeks ago, We have a human in heaven, interceding for us.
What grace! He took on humanity permanently, to save us permanently.
So God the Son:
came physically
died physically
was raised physically
ascended physically
reigns physically
And all this and more is wrapped up in Psalm 110. Which is why Jesus uses it.
⬇️But let’s back up to the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel:
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Matthew immediately puts his reason for writing his book into clear focus. It is about the genealogy of Jesus Christ. It is about whose son He is.
And He is the Son and David, and the Son of Abraham.
But what Matthew reveals throughout the book, is that this means Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of both the Abrahamic Covenant and the Davidic Covenant.
Because Abraham was promised that through His offspring all the people of the earth would be blessed.
And Paul makes clear that this is a reference to Christ:
Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ.
This is what Matthew is saying. Christ fulfills the unconditional promise made to Abraham.
David was promised that one of his offspring would reign forever. We saw this in our series on 2 Samuel. I’m sure you all remember, I preached on that only two years ago in December of 2023.
God made this unconditional promise to David:
When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.
This promise is expounded in the very first Christian sermon ever. On the day of Pentecost, the Apostle Peter - after receiving the Holy Spirit - preaches that epic message about Christ, and part of that is this:
“Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” ’ Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Through the resurrection and ascension, God made Him both Lord and Christ.
This is what Matthew is saying: that Christ fulfills the unconditional promise to David.
And note what Peter says - Christ was buried, but didn’t stay buried. Again, all the Jewish leaders had to do was find the body, and Christianity dies immediately.
But they couldn’t. And Peter tells us why. Christ was raised, and Christ ascended.
His body is in heaven - He is alive, reigning, and interceding for His people!
And Peter says this was all done according to the promises of the Scriptures.
But here’s what’s striking. Just like Jesus did with the religious leaders, the quote of Psalm 110 is Peter’s mic drop moment. The sermon ends here.
And what happens this time when it’s pointed out that Jesus is the predicted Messiah - both God and man who was killed, raised, and ascended?
3,000 people come to faith.
But not just because Jesus came back to life at some point in the past and even after He died was alive. But because Jesus is alive. Because He is now reigning Lord.
100% God and 100% man reigning as King over all.
That is exactly what Christ was saying when He asked His question about Psalm 110.
“What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet” ’? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”
And nobody gave Jesus an answer. Because they knew what the answer was. The only way He could be David’s Lord and his son, is if God took on humanity. If the eternal God stepped down into time as a descendent of David.
But that’s not all this says. It talks about YHWH telling David’s Lord to sit at His right hand.
Christ has to reign to be the Christ.
And He does. He ascended to heaven and took His rightful place as King.
Christ reigns!
⬇️It’s funny. Many of the Jews were looking for an earthly king to save them. They wanted the Messiah to reign on earth to free them from their captors.
Their understanding of the Messiah wasn’t completely wrong. Really…it was just too small.
Because an earthly king did come. He was born of a woman. He descended from David. He was human.
And the King did come to save. Not only Israel - but the whole world - from their real captors: sin and death.
And He does reign. The One Who was mockingly called “the King of the Jews” really is the King!
And He reigns over all the earth, and one day, He is going to reign on the earth. He reigns from His throne in heaven until all enemies are put under His feet.
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.”
The King has ascended. And the King reigns.
But there’s more, because the Psalm doesn’t just talk about Christ as King. It talks about Him as priest:
The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies! Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power, in holy garments; from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
He is a priest forever.
He is our High Priest - His ministry has not ended.
We believe that God’s Son physically ascended to his Father's right hand and is enthroned in glory, where he intercedes on behalf of his people and rules over all things for their sake.
Again, Christ had to come, He had to live perfectly, He had to die, He had to be raised, He had to ascend to heaven, He had to be enthroned as King…
…and He has to be our High Priest.
Again, the requirements of the Old Covenant all pointed to Christ. They pointed to our need for Him - for a perfect sacrifice.
And they pointed to our need for a perfect High Priest.
Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well. For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. For it is witnessed of him, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness (for the law made nothing perfect); but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God. And it was not without an oath. For those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath, but this one was made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever.’ ” This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.
Christ fulfilled the Law. For those who say “the Bible nowhere says that the Law of Moses no longer applies” - again, don’t trust the internet - I say to those people, read the book of Hebrews.
The Law has been fulfilled in Christ. The Law made nothing perfect - but Christ has.
This is why the covenant He made with us is a better covenant than the one He made with Israel. Because He has perfected what the Law could not.
Including the priesthood.
Just like - if you remember our Galatians series - the covenant with Abraham was not annulled by the covenant with Israel - so too, the true priesthood was not changed when the Law established the Levitical priesthood.
Again in our Samuel series - God tells Eli He is ending the physical priesthood, and then He calls David as King - and David wears the ephod. And David makes the offerings. When King Saul did that, God took his crown and then took his life - when David did it, God accepted it.
The King, from the tribe of Judah, was both King and Priest.
Just like His greater Son Jesus is both King and priest.
Just like Melchizedek was both King and priest.
Again, the Psalm reads:
The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
What does that mean? Who is Melchizedek?
We meet him way back in the book of Genesis.
After our rebellion at Babel, God chose Abraham and promised him that his offspring would bless the whole world.
And then shortly after that, his nephew Lot and his family are taken captive by the kings of the land, and Abraham rescues them, they are met by this man, Melchizedek:
And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”
Note that God is possessor of heaven and earth. He reigns over all. He is Most High! He is King!
Note that it is God Who worked on behalf of His chosen, and gave Abraham what he needed. God is priest.
Melchizedek the man was king and he was priest.
He was king of Salem - which means king of peace.
His name was Melchizedek, which means “king of righteousness”
This is the kind of Priest God promises the Messiah - 100% man and 100% God - that He would be this kind of priest, forever:
The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
Jesus is King, and Jesus is High Priest.
He is King. He is King over all creation. The world doesn’t know it, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Jesus is King.
And we, brothers and sisters - we know it. And whether we live like it or not, it doesn’t make it any less true.
But He is King. That means two things.
⬇️And I know, during this series, we cover a lot every week, and I throw a lot of Scripture at you every week, but remember that the teaching team is preaching to show you why we adopted the statement of faith that we did. Because it is what the Bible teaches.
But also remember, a statement of faith is just a piece of paper if what we believe doesn’t dictate how we live.
Today we are saying:
We believe that God’s Son physically ascended to his Father's right hand and is enthroned in glory, where he intercedes on behalf of his people and rules over all things for their sake.
Jesus is King.
So:
#1, We need to bow to the King - we are His people - this is His church
As Paul said in Ephesians:
For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
What a gracious gift. Christ has been given to us as King. And He now and forever reigns. We are part of a kingdom that will last literally forever.
We need to surrender ourselves to the King’s perfect will. We need to strive to be obedient servants of the One Who gave His life for us to save us.
He was our acceptable sacrifice on the cross. He gave up His life.
Now that He is King, let’s be living, acceptable sacrifices unto Him.
As Psalm 110 also says:
Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power, in holy garments;
This “will offer themselves freely” is literally just one word - it is the word translated most often as “freewill offering” in the Old Testament.
We are to freely make ourselves an offering to the King that made Himself our offering:
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Let’s worship Him in spirit and truth, by offering all we are to Him.
#2, Since Christ is King and we are His people, we need to claim the world for our King
Not through physical force, but through Spiritual force. As I said, many of the Jews were looking for a king to reign who would use physical force to overcome the enemy. What they got was a King that truly overcame the enemy.
And before He ascended on high, the King gave His subjects our marching orders:
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
This was Christ’s mic drop moment. He told His church what to do, and then physically ascended.
And the church began this. The Gospel was preached in Jerusalem, and then Judea, and then Samaria, and then to the Gentiles.
But we - the church - we haven’t finished this. We must continue to spread the glory of God over all the earth, just like we were commanded to do in the Garden of Eden.
God calls us to reclaim the world for Him. Our King sends us, not in physical force, but in spiritual power, to overcome what sin has done by being His witnesses - by spreading the Gospel to the ends of the earth in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Let’s be His witnesses in all things - what we say, what we do, how we live. Let’s pray for the salvation of the lost. Let’s dare to speak the truth of God no matter the cost.
Let’s use our gifts to serve each other and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
And let’s prepare to fight for our King:
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.
Brothers and sisters, let’s fight for our King!
But Jesus is not only our King, He is our High Priest.
And that means something for us.
Our God. Our Messiah. Our King - He is still working on our behalf.
We sang this morning:
When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see him there,
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died,
My sinful soul is counted free,
For God the just is satisfied
To look on him and pardon me
Or, let me give our statement one more time with the right emphasis:
We believe that God’s Son physically ascended to his Father's right hand and is enthroned in glory, where he intercedes on behalf of his people and rules over all things for their sake.
Christ became Who He did - 100% human - for our sake.
He lived perfectly for our sake.
He died for our sake.
He was raised for our sake.
And brothers and sisters, He ascended, and sit on His throne as King, and He intercedes for the elect - and He does it all for our sake!
He rules over it all. And He will forever.
And this is why we can know for sure His promises won’t fail. He proved through His resurrection not only Who He is and what He did, but what He is now and forever doing for us.
What can man do to us? If God is for us, who can be against us?
He Who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all - past tense - how will He not also with Him give us - present tense - all things?
“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
This has been given to us, and it will be given to us.
Because Christ did it.
And Christ will do it.
Bless the One who reigns forever
Bless the One who ransomed me from death to life
There is no other
Bless the only risen King
