Our Priestly King
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Introduction
Introduction
Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church. It is a blessing and a privilege to have all of you with us.
We’re coming to the end of our short summer foray into the Messianic Psalms - and I don’t know about you but this has been a fun, convicting and incredible series for me to study for and to preach. It has been a challenge as the Psalms are not always easy passages to preach - Dr. Steve Lawson has said that an average preacher becomes a good preacher and a good preacher becomes a great preacher by simply preaching the Psalms. I’m not sure exactly where I fall out on that scale but this has been a period of growth for me and I have enjoyed these few weeks as we’ve explored the Psalms and how they relate, glorify and point to the coming of the Messiah in the person of Jesus Christ. We started off looking at Psalm 2 and seeing the Son enthroned. Then we came to Psalm 8 and saw our magnificent Lord. Our hearts broke as we looked at the foretelling of the crucifixion described in Psalm 22. We saw the beautiful promise of the marriage supper of the Lamb contained in Psalm 45. And last week we saw the promise of God’s faithfulness and how it can endure even during our darkest days when He seems to be far from us.
Each week as we approached the Psalm I almost had to start off with a disclaimer, a warning, both to you as listeners and to myself as an expositor that we must be careful to see each of these Psalms in the original context that it was meant and not simply to read it backwards through the lens of the New Testament and our understanding of the fulfillment of much that is spoken of in each of those passages. Each of them were written for a specific reason at the moment of the writing and even though there was greater significance at the moment each was penned that significance was not readily apparent. And so we have carefully attempted to set each Psalm in the context in which it was written and then explore how it had a greater application to the person of Christ and pointing to Him as the promised Messiah.
This morning’s Psalm does not put us in that same position. It has been an interesting week as I prepared for this sermon and looked through commentaries on this passage. One that I looked at said that this Psalm has no necessity of being interpreted messianically and that even the verses that are applied to Christ in the New Testament were understood this way that as a whole this Psalm does not fit Him. If I had stopped right there we would be having a very different sermon today - but something about that struck me as odd. Now why do I bring that up? It is to encourage you to be aware of who and what you are reading or listening to. When something sounds strange or not right to your ears no matter who it is that wrote it or says it don’t stop there and just accept what is placed before you. Push on and really investigate what has been said to see if it is true - that is a great path to spiritual maturity and really appropriating the Biblical truths for yourself. That’s just a little bonus this morning but on to what we’re really here to talk about.
The Psalm we’re going to look at this morning is the single most quoted passage in the New Testament from the entire Old Testament. Your would think that it might be the 23rd Psalm or Psalm 119. But it is not. Just the first verse of this Psalm is referred to over 27 times in the New Testament. The great 18th Century Pastor and Commentary writer Matthew Henry said “This Psalm is pure gospel; it is only, and wholly, concerning Christ, the Messiah promised to the fathers and expected by them.”
In his exposition of this Psalm, James Montgomery Boice said this “It alone is about the Messiah and His work exclusively, without any primary reference to an earthly king.”
Turn with me to this great passage Psalm 110.
A psalm of David.
This is the declaration of the Lord to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.”
The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion. Rule over your surrounding enemies.
Your people will volunteer on your day of battle. In holy splendor, from the womb of the dawn, the dew of your youth belongs to you.
The Lord has sworn an oath and will not take it back: “You are a priest forever according to the pattern of Melchizedek.”
The Lord is at your right hand; he will crush kings on the day of his anger.
He will judge the nations, heaping up corpses; he will crush leaders over the entire world.
He will drink from the brook by the road; therefore, he will lift up his head.
It is very fitting that we look at this Psalm on a Communion Sunday. In fact - just in reading it - if this weren’t a Sunday that we were taking Communion we should demand to partake. But first let’s look at what this Psalm means for us today. The Psalm is going to enable us to be observers to two great cataclysmic events. The first is Christ’s arrival in Heaven following His ascension and the second is related to His return a second time.
Christ Exalted
Christ Exalted
This is the declaration of the Lord. This is not some quiet pronouncement but instead the calm, sure and grand welcome of a victorious prince. If this were a scene from The Lord of the Rings this is where the hero would push open the doors of the castle returning victorious from the field. Instead we have this, the declaration of our Lord to my Lord to sit down at My right hand. This is a moment of greeting in Heaven - Christ having accomplished all that had been set before Him is met by God the Father and ushered to His place of honor.
The right hand of a sovereign was the place of honor in the ancient Near East. This statement is from the Lord - Yahweh - to my Lord Adonai a ruler or regent. It is the pronouncement of God the Father to the Son. If this were a mere dinner thrown by the regent then a seat at the right hand of the host would have been the highest honor that could be bestowed. But here it is at the right hand of the King - this is a place that signifies sharing in the rule. This is more than merely an honor but to be co-equal with the King in His sovereign rule over His Kingdom.
You see there is no one else this Psalm could be about except Christ. Let’s back up a moment to the attribution of the Psalm. It says that it is a Psalm of David. This is significant for a few reasons. The first is the verbiage that is used in verse 1 tells us that the two individuals being referred to when it says The Lord to my Lord are both of higher station than the speaker or writer of the Psalm.
The first Lord is in all caps in most of your translations and it signifies the name Yahweh or Jehovah - the holy name of the most high God. And then the second name, the second reference to Lord is the word Adonai or Adon and it carries with it the meaning of lord or master. The author of this Psalm is affirming that both the Lord God and this Lord Adonai are higher in station than himself.
Now this could still point to the Psalm being about David if some sycophant was seeking to ingratiate himself to David and to place him at the right hand of God as ruler over Israel. Or it could point to a human descendent of David if penned by a later writer. The Davidic Covenant promised that a man from the line of David would rule
When your time comes and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up after you your descendant, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
But this Psalm is attributed to David both here in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.
Following His triumphant entry into Jerusalem Christ challenges the Pharisees with a question
While the Pharisees were together, Jesus questioned them,
“What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They replied, “David’s.”
He asked them, “How is it then that David, inspired by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’:
The Lord declared to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet’?
“If David calls him ‘Lord,’ how then can he be his son?”
No one was able to answer him at all, and from that day no one dared to question him anymore.
Two points are important for our study of this Psalm. The first is that Christ affirms that David authored these words and that the words were to be applied to the Messiah. The second is that, in case there were still those who would protest, that the words were not David’s alone but instead were inspired by the Spirit. This speaks to the likelihood and now affirmed fact that as David penned these words he was speaking not of a current iteration of an earthly king but instead pointing towards the ultimate fulfillment of the Messianic promise.
In fact there is only one person in all of history that this Psalm could possibly point to - Christ. Why? Because there is only one person who can boast of not one but two qualifications that could place Him at the Father’s right hand.
The first is the fact that Christ is in truth God eternal from times past. He, as His Father does, has no beginning or end, no birthday, no creator - He just was, is and always will be. As we studied in the book of Colossians there is not one thing that was made that was not made through or for Him.
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.
He is before all things, and by him all things hold together.
He was in the beginning with God as John writes in His Gospel
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.
And John affirms here that Christ is in fact God - not that He is a god, but that He is God. So of course by right of His Sonship He is the only one worthy of the seat at the right hand of God. Later in John’s Gospel Christ Himself affirms His divinity and equality with God. Speaking to the Pharisees again Christ says
“If I glorify myself,” Jesus answered, “my glory is nothing. My Father—about whom you say, ‘He is our God’—he is the one who glorifies me.
You do not know him, but I know him. If I were to say I don’t know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him, and I keep his word.
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.”
The Jews replied, “You aren’t fifty years old yet, and you’ve seen Abraham?”
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.”
So by divine right Jesus had a claim to sit at the right hand of God. But that is not the picture that we are given here - it is not the picture of one who says “Of course this is your seat - by all means take the seat that you have by birthright”. This is an exaltation. Now before I go any further I am not making any sort of case that there was a deficiency in Christ or something was lacking in His glory prior to His incarnation. Instead what I’m saying here is that this is the victorious return of Christ to Heaven. Unlike the scene I referred to earlier in the Lord of the Rings when Aragorn returns to Helms Deep there is still a battle to be fought. One of many. But when Christ is welcomed back in to Heaven, as His Father greets Him with these words “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool” there is a finality. The battle is over - the work has been completed.
Which leads me to the explanation of the second reason that Christ is able to sit in the position of honor and rulership. He has conquered everything. He has vanquished every foe. When the time was right as Paul writes in Galatians
When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
Christ came forth emptying Himself of His divine prerogatives
who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited.
Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man,
yet it is important to recall that He was not simply God, He was not simply man He was both God and man. Two natures coexisting in one human being. Charles Spurgeon described it this way
741He is not humanity deified. He is not Godhead humanized. He is God. He is man. He is all that God is, and all that man is as God created him.
And He came for a purpose.
And that purpose has been accomplished. Christ came and lived the perfect life surviving every temptation. And when we say that it is not to say that Christ suffered from every temptation or that He could have sinned. Nor can we say that Christ grappled with or wrestled with temptation - at every point when He was tempted He met it with the Word of God. He was so focused on the Lord’s will that He was incapable of doing anything (or even contemplating anything) that would have been contrary or unpleasing to God. And the ultimate surrender, the ultimate reason for His coming was to humble himself to die on the cross
he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.
His death wasn’t to provide an example for how we should surrender somethings to God or to provide for the possibility of atonement. It was to pay for the particular sins of those who would believe in Him.
But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
And He did this to give those who would believe in Him the right to be called the children of God
But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name,
He became the propitiation - He received the just wrath of God for our sins so that we might be viewed as righteous in Him and redeemed for eternal life
They are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
God presented him as an atoning sacrifice in his blood, received through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed.
John Owens, the great Puritan pastor and writer, said it this way
“The storm hath been His, and the safety shall be ours.
As all the waters which would have fallen upon them that were in the ark fell upon the ark...all the wrath that should have fallen upon us fell on Christ: which alone causes our souls to dwell in safety.”
And He didn’t just stay dead but on the third day He rose from the grave - conquering sin and death once and for all. And then He ascended into Heaven and we have a glimpse into His welcome as God the Father greets Him and welcomes Him home giving Him back His place of honor that He had abdicated for a time for our benefit. He even now sits at the right hand of God the victorious regent who advocates for His people.
Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven. He saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
He said, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
Stephen testifies to us where Christ is. John testified to where He is throughout the 4th and 5th chapters of the book of Revelation.
And now we come to the question - Christian do you rejoice in this? Do you exalt in the glorified Christ or has this moment lost some luster in your eyes as you’ve gotten further and further away from your day of salvation?
What about those of you who are here who do not know Him as Lord? Do you recognize that the future for you is that you will be made into a footstool? That if you continue and persist in your sin that one day Christ will return and place His foot on your neck in subjection? Don’t buy in to the modern notion that all roads will get you there and that you can call on Him by any name you desire and that you’ll be saved. This is your moment. This is your time. Because you never know what the next moment will bring. 1940 years ago, in 79AD, 16,000 people were killed instantly when Mt. Vesuvius erupted sending a column of ash 12 miles into the atmosphere, winds over 200mph rushed down into the town of Pompeii carrying erupted material and raising the temperature to around 900 degrees instantly. The town was covered by 10 feet of rock and ash. 16,000 people dead in an instant.
I’m going to do something that I don’t normally do - I’m going to pause here for a moment. If you are here today and you don’t know Christ as your Savior but the Spirit is working in your heart right now this is a moment for you to cry out to Him. I’m not going to lead you in a prayer or call you down to this altar. Kyle is available in the back if you feel you want someone to speak to but you must call out to Him in your own words. He wants to hear it from you - not some canned words that I put in your mouth. He is there and He is willing to save you - you must simply cry out to Him.
If you have taken that step this morning would you please connect with me or Kyle after the service. We want to get you a Bible and we want to help you in the next steps of your Christian walk. If you don’t want to talk with us - then please fill out a connection card that lets us know that you have submitted to His Lordship in your life and been made right with Him.
Well - that’s verse 1. We have much more to cover...
Christ Enthroned and Proclaimed
Christ Enthroned and Proclaimed
Dr. H. A. Ironside called this time period that we are living in “the great parentheses” - and what he means by that is that we are living in the time between Christ’s ascension and welcome back in to Heaven pictured in verse 1 and His triumphant return that we are all looking forward to. We are living in what theologians call the church age and we see that presented to us in part in verses 2 and 3.
David moves on from the throne room of Heaven to write that the Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion. A scepter is a rod that sovereigns carry that they use to make decrees and to direct their power. The scepter that David refers to here is the Word of the Lord that has gone forth and is even now carrying out His decrees to the ends of the earth. An indication of this is found in Isaiah 11:4
but he will judge the poor righteously and execute justice for the oppressed of the land. He will strike the land with a scepter from his mouth, and he will kill the wicked with a command from his lips.
It is this word, this scepter, that is currently demonstrating God’s rule in the midst of His enemies. The CSB chose to translate this passage as to rule over. The NASB translates this passage as in the midst of the enemies. It is God’s Word that has gone forth and is going forth continuing to confound the enemies of Christ and their wisdom. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians
For since, in God’s wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of what is preached.
It is in God’s wisdom that through the wisdom of the world man cannot come to know Him but only through His Word as it is preached are men drawn to Him. This is supported in Romans 10
How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher?
And the confirmation that the Word of God is true and valuable
All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness,
His scepter has gone forth into the very corners of the earth - but just as a decree in ancient times must be carried forth we see the church hinted at in David’s next words.
Your people will volunteer on your day of battle. Even now - in victory - Christ is still in battle for the souls of His sheep and Satan has not relented even though he knows he is beaten. It says here that His people will volunteer - and that is a challenge to us. There is no such thing as a spectator Christian. There is no such thing as a sideline or a bench for the believer in Christ. We are either volunteering in the battle or we should examine ourselves to see what side of the fight we are on. There is no doctrine of retirement in the Bible either - there is always something we can do.
There are some here today who are more able bodied than others but you’re trying to sit on the sidelines, to sit back and let others do the work. You need to get involved. Our King has mandated it - there was no qualification on the commands given in Matthew 28:19-20. There were no qualifications for those who worked in the early church as they supported one another and met in one another’s homes - they did it out of love for Christ and seeking to His glory. We are in a fight for Spokane Valley - for the Lord’s name and His glory in this city. Where are you at in this fight? We have been speaking for months about our one or our two and talking about it is fine - but we have to do something about it. And that goes for me as well. Kind of by nature of my role here I have several different discipleship relationships going at once but I need to do a better job of leading you all in evangelistic endeavors. On my desk I have a number of cards that designate people’s “ones” and we’ve been praying over those - but have you talked to them yet? Have you invited them here? The Lord has extended His mighty scepter - He’s placed it in your hands - will you carry it forth to completion?
We belong to Him. We are committed to His service. There are many different interpretations to what the next sentences mean - but I think in light of the preceding verse that it could be that we are the dew. That the womb of the dawn speaks to God’s choosing of us in eternity past before time began, before the dawn of the world and that we are the dew that is meant to refresh the world through the power of the scepter of His Word.
And this is all done in service of our King who is also now revealed to be our priest as well. it is interesting that a Jewish king and psalmist would choose the pattern of Melchizedek rather than the more prevalent and relevant Aaronic pattern. But He is proclaimed to be a priest in the pattern of Melchizedek, the priest-king of Salem who mysteriously appears in Genesis 14 when Abraham rescues Lot. We are not given a lineage or any other reference to who Melchizedek was. The clearest explanation we have of him, and really this is more of a reference to Christ, is found in Hebrews 7-9.
For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of God Most High, met Abraham and blessed him as he returned from defeating the kings,
and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, his name means king of righteousness, then also, king of Salem, meaning king of peace.
Without father, mother, or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.
Notice that His name means the king of righteousness and that he is the king of Salem - the king of peace. Who better in Scripture represents these two attributes than Christ Himself. But He is demonstrated to be a priest in the order of Melchizedek in another aspect as well - because having completed His work He sat down at the right hand of God. Christ, unlike the Aaronic priesthood, offered up a single sacrifice that was sufficient for all time. Consider Hebrews 7 again.
For this is the kind of high priest we need: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.
He doesn’t need to offer sacrifices every day, as high priests do—first for their own sins, then for those of the people. He did this once for all time when he offered himself.
We are His people, we have submitted to His scepter and have been sent forth as His volunteers to represent this Priest-King.
Christ Returns Victorious
Christ Returns Victorious
And now time is short so just a few more observations - and this is important for those who have still not bowed their will to Christ’s. Because we have the promise that He will return. And when He does the promise of His Father to make His enemies a footstool will be accomplished. Notice the shift in position from verse 1 to verse 5 - in verse 1 Christ is told to sit at the right hand of God the Father. In verse 5 the Word says that the Lord is at Your right hand. On that day the Lord’s wrath will be unleashed on all those who have not repented and placed their faith in the Son. He will crush the kings, judge the nations, He will crush leaders all over the world.
But it is Christ who will drink from the brook by the road. When One is in the heat of a battle there is no time to drop by the brook and grab a drink - this speaks of One who has fully conquered and vanquished His foes and now has the peace required to dip His head and drink. There is no equivocation here - any more than the declaration at the beginning that says for Him to come and sit by the Lord’s right hand. This will happen - He will be victorious and His head will be lifted up in victory over His enemies. He will be exalted just as Paul says in Philippians 2
so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth—
and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Conclusion
Conclusion