Psalms of Life: Jesus

Scripture

Psalm 110 NIV

Of David. A psalm. The Lord says to my lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, saying, “Rule in the midst of your enemies!” Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy splendor, your young men will come to you like dew from the morning’s womb. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” The Lord is at your right hand; he will crush kings on the day of his wrath. He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth. He will drink from a brook along the way, and so he will lift his head high.

Introduction

Doctorate project…Autobiography. Looking back I can see things that I did not understand in the process. Reflection is a good practice to have to understand what God is doing in your life. Reflection was mandatory for the first disciples of Jesus.

Paul disappearing

Paul disappearing

Paul disappearing

The road to Emmaus is an incredible scene in Luke’s gospel because it is Jesus leading that reflection. Tell the story. Moses, prophets and all of scripture and then in the upper room Jesus says the same statement, Moses, prophets, psalms, and all of scripture.

is going to be something that has incredible power on its own but it is the local of NT reflection. Reinterpreting Scripture. This is one of the central prophecies of Jesus, written maybe a thousand years before him.

Prophecy…Magic?

What is prophecy? I want to develop that a little for us...

“There is an important phrase that all theological students learn but that is not widely recognized among laypeople. It is the Latin phrase sensus plenior, meaning “fuller sense” or “fuller meaning.” It refers to the fact that the authors of Scripture often wrote or spoke of certain realities, not realizing that they would be fulfilled or realized in ways that were even greater than they imagined. A classic example is found in , where the prophet Isaiah tells King Ahaz that a sign of God’s deliverance is that a young maiden will give birth to a child whose name will be called Immanuel (God with us). It was, at one level, about God’s promise to defeat Ephraim and Syria, but it was later seen as a deeper promise fulfilled by Jesus Christ himself who would deliver us from an even greater foe.” -Tim Tennent

Most of the prophecy in the Bible has an indirect nature to it. Writing about a truth that becomes an amazing deeper truth later on. Some prophecy is a direct truth and is appealing to something that will come true. The suffering servant of , for example. A vision given to the prophet and the words describe exactly what Jesus would endure centuries later.

, believe, is one of those direct prophetic words. A vision of the messiah given to David and one that will not fully make sense until Jesus arrives.

We see that in the very first verse:

Psalm 110:1 NIV

The Lord says to my lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

This first line is Yahweh says to adoni… God says to my master. Some scholars say that David is literally speaking of a dialogue between the Father and the Son…I dont know if you have to go that far but think of it this way.....

David is at the end of himself, he knows his kingship is only a glimmer of what is promised by Yahweh, he knows there will be another king that will fulfil the promises...

:

2 Samuel 7:11–13 NIV

and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies. “ ‘The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

David looks forward to this King....

What is even crazier is that as David looks forward to this future King, NT writers and Jesus himself look back to this psalm.

Messiah Psalm

is so important and this morning I want to show the lens through which the biblical authors see it. Rather than breaking it down verse by verse I want you to see the declaration that God has made through it and the way others have understood it.

NT Wright says this about the end of Luke’s gospel:

“In Luke’s Gospel, the risen Jesus explains to the puzzled and previously downcast disciples, ‘everything written about me in the law of Moses, and in the prophets and the Psalms, had to be fulfilled. This looks more like a way of reading the entire scriptural story, and within that entire book of psalms, than an attempt to pluck a few key texts out of a mass of otherwise unhelpful material. Like all good poetry, then, the Psalms invite and sustain multiple levels of reading, but when we see them in the context of early Christianity, one level in particular stands out. The Psalms form the great epic poem of the creator and covenant God who will at the last visit and redeem His people and, with them, His whole creation.” - NT Wright, The Case for the Psalms

---This is important.... Jesus did not simply proof text scripture to the Emmaus dudes and the disciples. He is not going, this could be me, and this could be me…no he is saying you missed the forest from the trees. And is a summation of His messiahship, declaring that He is the promised messiah in the line of David!

Martin Luther on 110:

“The beautiful psalm (110), therefore, is the very core and quintessence of the whole scripture. No other psalm prophesies as abundantly and completely about Christ” - Martin Luther, Vol. 13 of works

The Psalms is the most quote book in the new testament and 110 is the most quoted psalm. 33 times it is referenced and almost all of it is in the first couple verses declaring his reign

At the right hand....

The Promised One

I want to focus on two of these texts to show the weight of NT interpretation here.

Acts:

Jesus tells the disciples that they should go and wait for the power to come. The Holy Spirit is given and the disciples are transformed, the movement begins. In an instant this crew goes from fearful for their life and unsure about what to do…to preaching in the heart of Jerusalem. Peter begins to preach. He tells the story of Jesus...

Acts 2:22

Acts 2:22–24 NIV

“Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.

Acts 2:32-

Acts 2:32–36 NIV

God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” ’ “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”

Peter grabs hold of the Psalm, the one that promised a descendent of David as the messiah and says that’s Jesus....he is the one. Look at their response...

Acts 2:

Acts 2:37 NIV

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Whatever you think about Jesus, wherever you are today…I want you to start here. The skeptics, the nay-sayers, when they here this testimony they are changed. When Peter finishes thousands give their life to this messiah.

“This psalm demonstrates that even a thousand years before the coming of Christ, all the great events of the incarnation and salvation history were already predicted in seed form. It is not merely that a few dozen psalms prophetically point to Christ. Rather, Jesus is the ultimate subject and singer of all the psalms. We will see this truth illuminated again in . He alone is the righteous one depicted in and 15, who alone has walked unsoiled along the way of the righteous. It is Jesus who cries out in the Psalms for the vindication of the righteous. It is Jesus who heralds the day when all things will be made right. It is Jesus who alone is the only truly innocent sufferer. In one bold stroke on the very first day of the Christian church, when Peter quotes and applies it to Christ, the entire Psalter is opened up to us in a new way. It is Jesus who is the enthroned One. It is Jesus who is the priest according to the order of Melchizedek. It is Jesus who stands as the final Judge of the world! What an assurance for those of us who have place our trust in him.” -Tim Tennent

If that is not enough, consider Jesus’ perspective....

Jesus the Priest-King

There are a couple places in the gospels where Jesus takes a hold of this psalm like a job description. There is this great exchange with Pharisees. They have tried to catch him with all of these challenges in chapter 22 of Mathew. They ask him about marriage and what happens if a husband dies… then they ask about the greatest commandment in the Bible.... all just trying to catch him in interpretations of the Law then Jesus say this....

Matthew 22:41–45 NIV

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” “The son of David,” they replied. He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says, “ ‘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 can he be his son?”

Matthew 22

When Moses talks to His Lord in …the one that would be his son also…how can this be? look at how stuck they get...

Matthew 22:45 NIV

If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?”

Matthew 22:45–46 NIV

If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.

Matthew 22:

They are freaked out because not only did he just stump them, they can’t figure out if he just claimed to be that Lord… Mind grenade.

Ok, one more…the most important one.

Jesus is on trial before Pontius and he is being questions by Caiphas, the high priest…I want to read it to you and then we can break it down. See if you can find the reference:

Matthew 26:59–65 NIV

The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death. But they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward. Finally two came forward and declared, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’ ” Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” But Jesus remained silent. The high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” “You have said so,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy.

Matthew 26:

Did you catch it? Why is it that what Jesus says here is enough for Caiphas to lose his mind and for them to sentence Him to death?!

Because he just grabbed . Jesus takes a vision from Daniel of being the Son of man coming on the clouds (a whole different sermon for sure) and the Messiah of . He just declared that He is God and that He is the promised one that he is the one who is King.

Friends, this is why the call him a blasphemer, this is why they give him a crown of thorns. This is why they dress him in purple and nail a sign that says King of the Jews. Because he just told them he is the awaited King. They think he is twisting things and trying to take away their power. They Kill him because of this.

Jesus is Lord

Let me just challenge us all a bit today in closing. Where are you today? Is Jesus the Lord of your life? Is Jesus some good teacher? Is this just a good framework that is helpful for your family? CS Lewis, well known quote from Mere Christianity applies here....

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.

You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

And the last question I want to ask…Are you living like one that stands in this truth. That your messiah is the one who is making all things come unto Him. Do you stand in the one who is ruling with scepter? That radically changes things for our life. I know things are messed up and I know there is are competing narratives of darkness and evil but this Jesus defeated death, sin, and evil in the cross and resurrection. That victory is available for you today.

Nonbeliever: Look hard at this person of Jesus.

Believer: Walk out of here like there is a King