Psalm 47

History is full of men and women through the ages who very powerful. Kings, queens, emperors, dictators, tyrants, world conquerors, Presidents, Prime Ministers… and the list goes on. Many of these leaders were incredibly powerful and saw their influence span great geographical distances and through great periods of time. The Bible itself is full of accounts of many powerful kings. I have been reading recently about the Second World War and we know many of the leaders at that time were notorious for their unbridled hunger for power and control. We have learned as a people that strong leaders can come in all types and use their position for evil or good. As I look back in history and consider some of the great kings, the infamous rulers, the tyrants and dictators… do you know what they all have in common? They are all gone. They’ve all died. Their influence now is only in history books. Yes, their deeds have lived on and continue to affect people, but the reality is that their influence is no longer direct. Powerful kings are only powerful while they are living. As much as some of the most maniacal of kings wanted to be all-powerful, without rivals or unparalleled in human history, not a single one of them was. Not one of them had the power to stop death. For common people like me this is both confounding and comforting. Confounding because we all seem to revere certain leaders, using words like the greatest, the best, etc. Yet, it’s comforting because when we run across the evil leaders, we know that their rule will only be for a limited time. Yet, it’s also comforting because it points to a greater truth: although human rulers come and go, there is an Eternal King who will always remain and he deserves our praise. This morning, we will look at a Psalm that highlights the great king, the eternal and sovereign king: God.

Read Psalm 47

Of all the doctrines of the Bible that have made the most impact on my heart and life, none has made more of an impression than the sovereignty of God. The sovereignty of God speaks to the biblical truth and reality that God is the king over all the earth and over all humanity and he is free from anything external that would hinder this. In some ways, this doctrine is a great mystery because we aren’t able to fully comprehend what this means from a human perspective. Yet, this is not meant to be some heady doctrine for the intellectuals or the theologians in the ivory towers. The sovereignty of God, His kingship, is meant to impact people like you and I, everyday Christians. Psalm 47 is a praise to this great fact and really helps us understand how we are to respond to this great truth. Where does the doctrine that is spelled out in this beautiful psalm lead us? It leads us to praise.

Psalm 47 is full of praise. This is no ordinary praise, either. Psalm 47 is an explosion of praise using words and phrases like clap your hands, shout to God and sing praises. This is not some silent praise where we internally acknowledge that God is king. Rather, the psalmist is telling us that we need to lift our collective voices to shout and praise the God who is the sovereign king over all the earth and all humanity. I can imagine the greatest praise here on earth, but none of that can do justice to the praise that God deserves. A few years back, when I lived in Willis, a good friend of mine and myself, we drove up to go to a Dallas Cowboys football game. This was no ordinary game. It was a Cowboys vs. Redskins, Monday night football game. I’m sure you can guess what team I was rooting for. It was pretty incredible to be there in that stadium and the noise and the cheering were incredible. Needless to say, Jerry Jones can put on quite a show. Now, the cheering had died down at the end because a certain team had beaten the hometown team… details, details. I can still remember the cheering, the clapping, and the loudest noises that I can recall. If the cowboys can generate that sort of praise, imagine what the God of the universe is deserving of and can generate from human beings.

Why praise? Psalm 47 will actually begin to spell out why we praise God and what it means for God to be Sovereign. First, God is the King. The bible uses the language of Kingship because it speaks to his actual position and it is also the highest sort of human language that we have that points to ultimate power. Now, it a modern sense the idea of a king doesn’t hold the same weight, as we tend to see kings and queens as more symbolic than anything else. However, if you were an early reader of the Bible, you would completely understand what it meant for God to be King. He was the ultimate ruler. The picture is this: God is the king not of a certain area, not of a certain region, not of a certain country but of the whole earth. You see that in this Psalm when it says that he is the king of the whole earth. However, he is not only the king over all the earth but he reigns over all the nations. How do we respond to his kingship? Awe. Verse 2 says that the Lord is to be feared. Another translation is, For the Lord Most High is awesome. God is awesome and awe-inspiring. We look at this king of the universe and we are awed. We are humbled by the absolute power that he has. We don’t come before this God in a nonchalant or casual way, rather we are struck by his glory. Years ago, my Dad and I had the opportunity to see the president of the United States. Of course, I don’t mean see him in a personal way, rather we saw him along with several other thousand people. We were in Washington DC for Memorial Day and we heard him speak at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It was an incredible moment. When the president stepped out, it was surreal in a lot of ways because you recognize that at that moment you are within 50 yards of the most important man on the planet. If the president can garner that much awe, can you imagine the God of the universe? Do you have awe and reverence before this holy God? When we speak of the fear of the Lord, this is exactly what we mean. Do you bow before him in submission? Do you consider him as Holy? This is the mark of the Christian life, not terror but awe. I am afraid that so often we have been taught indirectly, to treat God as casual, as ordinary. We have lost the awesomeness of who He is. When we come before God, we come before the Holy King. When we pray, we are praying to the King. When we sing, we are singing to the King. When we read his Word, we are reading the words of the King.

Not only is God the King, but God is also the Conqueror. In many ways, Psalm 47 is a praise song to God after he has won the victory and conquered the enemies. These could be enemies of God all the way back in Canaan or it could be those who were enemies in the time of the kings. Do you see that particular language? “He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet, “and “God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.” To ascend is a picture of the king taking his rest on his throne. For God to be sovereign, means that all the enemies of God will bow down before him. In another way, if God is sovereign then the enemies are powerless before him. They aren’t really enemies because they could never defeat God. It isn’t a close battle, a nail-biter. God always wins in complete fashion. For God's people and us, the leads us to rest. If the enemy is subdued, then God’s people in this day were able to rest. They were able to give this whole-hearty praise because they were able to rest from the enemy. When you know that you have a king that is going to protect you and defend you, you can have actual rest. It’s only when you have a weak or unstable king that you live in fear and anxiety. I believe these truths have powerful spiritual implications. Listen, we have spiritual enemies. These are the unseen enemies. The devil and his minions would seek to bring chaos and disorder and their main goal is to drag as many people to hell as they can. They are behind every conflict that we face today. Guess what? They are defeated. They are done. They were defeated at the cross. Yet, God in his sovereign will has not sent them into eternal hell, but he will. Remember this though, they are defeated. We can live lives of rest and peace because we know that although we face great difficulties and the enemies press against us, we live in the knowledge that they are defeated. We live in confidence believing that they cannot harm us. While the chaotic nature of the world flows around us, we live in rest knowing that God is in control. We live with Romans 8:28 on our heart, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Listen church, we can rest knowing that God is in control. Evil won’t have victory. God will. He has already won. We don’t have to live in constant fear, not sure what is going to happen. When we find ourselves overcome with anxiety and fear, we out to go back to the sovereignty of God. I do. I find myself gripped with fear at times and I must remember, God is in control.

Not only is God the King and Conqueror, but he is a Personal King. He is not aloof, sitting on some throne far away from the affairs and problems of the people. He knows his people. In verse 4, it says, “He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves.” God, personally cared for his people Israel. He was involved in their lives. He knew them, he cared for them, and he had a plan for them. He is intimately involved in the lives of the people. Sometimes with think of God’s sovereignty as some grand doctrine that affects the affairs of the world but not of individuals. The reality of this doctrine is that God knows you, and he knows everything about you and he everything about everything going on around you. He’s not like somebody when you tell them your problems and they say, “Wow! You have a lot of bad stuff happening.” He knows and is intimately involved with your life. You are known by God. You aren’t invisible. Amid the most difficult things in life, I want you to remember this truth and etch it your heart, the sovereign king of the universe knows you and he loves you. Out of billions of people, he cares for you. This leads to great comfort. I want you to be comforted by this great truth. Sometimes as we go through life and very difficult things happen, we do wonder if God even knows that we are here. Perhaps we wonder if God is too busy dealing with other people that he can’t deal with your problems at the moment. As humans, we know that we can only deal with a certain number of problems at a time. Not God. He can care for all your problems.

When you think about what this Psalm says, That God is the King and Conqueror who is also personal and you realize that this leads to awe, rest and comfort, it makes sense why this is a praise song. This is the God we worship. Listen church, God knows you and he is for you. You and I can live this Christian life boldly and with great confidence because we serve the sovereign king. As the world seems to unravel around us, we can have confidence that God is in complete control. This should lead to great praise in the human heart. How much time do you spend praising God? In your prayers, how much time do you spending asking compared to how much you spend exalting or praising? Think about that.

As we consider this idea that God is King, we know that this means that he is king over everything; over all affairs and all people. The Gospel truth in all of this is that in the very beginning with Adam and Eve, God was on the throne of the human heart. Yet, sin creeped in the world and the most insidious part of this sin was the desire of humans to replace God from the throne of our hearts with self. This is essentially what sin is: trying to be king of your own life. Many people today live as if there are the masters of their lives, in complete control. This is most obviously not correct, but it leads to separation from God. You see, when we deny the kingship of God, we are rebels. Sinful people are rebels against a Holy and just God. We are rebelling in a just cause, but an evil cause. We, as sinful people, are evil rebels. The punishment for that rebellion is eternal separation from a holy and just God. Yet, the great Gospel truth is that Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, stepped down from heaven onto earth to die for us. Think about this: the King has died for the rebels. He has taken our place on the cross so that we could be restored to a right relationship with the father. He has made away for us to be cleansed from our rebellion. If you will trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior, you can be saved today.