Psalm 2

As we look at Psalm 2, we can break it up into three parts. First, we hear the nations of the earth rebel against God and his rule. Then, we hear God responding to that rebellion by installing his anointed King over all the earth. And finally, we hear God inviting the nations of the earth who are in rebellion against him to come and find refuge in his anointed King. So we’re going to take up each of these items this morning. Let’s turn to Psalm 2 verses 1-3:

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”

In this first movement of the psalm, we hear the nations of the earth, the peoples and kings and rulers, all of them have come together to declare their independence from God and his rule. They’ve conspired together to break free from God and declare themselves in charge. They intend to make their mark on the world in the way that they see fit.

But this isn’t like a child growing up and becoming more independent from their parents, no, we see in the words that the psalmist uses - the nations rage, the peoples plot, the rulers take counsel against the Lord. This is a product of maturation, this is mutiny. The creatures are attempting to overthrow the Creator. And that’s why the author is shocked. He’s astonished at the brazen pride and vanity on display that the rebels think they can wrest the throne away from the God of the Universe.

What would this be like? Well, when I was a freshman in college, I spent the summer working at a summer camp for elementary age kids - specifically, my charge was first and second graders. So I spent several months playing frisbee and basketball and soccer with eight year olds, and I have to say, in comparison to these kids, I was exceptionally talented. They didn’t stand a chance. Now imagine, buoyed by a summer of owning first graders in basketball, I started going around claiming I could take Lebron James in a game of one-on-one. You’d think me crazy and full of myself.

That’s the impression we get in this opening movement of Psalm 2. The fact that people think they can impose their will on God’s world is like scrawny, emo, Freshman Collin thinking he could take on one of the greatest players in basketball. It’s laughable, which is exactly how the Lord responds in verse 4.

He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.

Here we move into the second movement of the psalm as we take a look at how God responds to the rebellion of the nations. And the first thing he does is he laughs. Now, what kind of a laugh is this? This is the response of someone who is not threatened at all. God does not see our rebellion against him, our desire for independence from him, our sin against him as a threat to his authority. All the nations of the world, from the most insignificant to the greatest super power, all the nations of the world can rage against the Lord and his rule, but to him it is like when I’m changing my son’s diaper. Oooooh he doesn’t like it, and he yells and squirms and kicks and fights me, but I know without a shadow of doubt that we’re walking away from that changing table with a brand new diaper on his bum. His raging is no threat to my will being done, and the pslamist says so it is with the Lord. He is not worried. He laughs.

But while God laughs at the vanity and arrogance of those who think they can stave off the his desires for the world, the Lord understands the severity of the situation. Laughing cannot be God’s only response to this attempted mutiny, and we see his full response, beginning in verse 5:

Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

The laughter of God quickly becomes wrath and fury, and psalm 2 quickly becomes uncomfortable, because the image of God as wrathful and furious is not a comforting image. And we like comfortable gods. We’re not too keen on uncomfortable gods, which is a challenge in our context because the God of the Bible and the Jesus of the Bible are regularly uncomfortable. But let me say this to those of us who bridle at the descriptions like this: the Bible is a unified story that leads to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The Bible is one, great story - and no one part of the story can tell the whole story. So when we come to parts of the story that show God speaking or acting out of wrath and anger, those portions of the story are meant to teach us something important about God and ourselves, but they are not the whole story - meaning they are not the full picture of who God is. To get the full picture, we’ve got to continue listening to the story.

But in Psalm 2, we are challenged by this depiction of God who speaks in his wrath and terrifies the rebellious nations in his fury. And it is good that we hear this, because so often we minimize the severity of sin. We play down what it means to sin against God. We think of it as indifference. It’s not personal, we’re not trying to be malicious. But the way the Bible talks about sin is completely different. Paul writes in Romans and again in Colossians that our sin flows out of a hostility we feel towards God. Hostility, not indifference. James says that we sin because we are enemies of God. It is very personal. In fact, the way that the psalmist, here, describes the rebellion of the nations is completely in line with how the Bible describes yours and my natural stance towards God. We see the God who created us, sustains us, loves us, provides for us, and in our sin we conspire against him and seek to threaten his rule over the world. Tim Keller famously said, that the first part of the gospel is that we are far worse off than we ever thought.

So how does God respond to our personal attack on his authority? What’s his answer to our rebellion against him? He enthrones a King. And not just any King, this is the King of the Lord’s choosing, the one who will carry out the will of God perfectly and completely. This is the Lord’s way of saying, “Listen up nations of the world, you may conspire and plot all you want, but I’ve already decided who will rule my world, and it is MY anointed King.”

And listen how this anointed King is described. His connection to God will be like that of a father to his son. His rule will be universal - all the nations will be his heritage and the ends of the earth will be under his care. His power will be unmatched - he will break and shatter any and all opposition to his authority and rule. And through the unmatched power and authority of his Son, God will establish his kingdom, his rule and reign over all the earth. There will be nowhere to hide from the Son of God.

And yet, the psalm does not end with fear. It ends with grace. It ends with mercy. Having heard the nations sinning against God, and God responding to their rebellion by installing a King to defeat all opposition, the final movement of the psalm sees God inviting the very same people who are actively rebelling against him, to come and be blessed by finding refuge in his Son. Verse 10.

Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

What is the message that we get at the end of this poem? The message is this: while there is no refuge from the Son, there is always refuge in the Son. God’s kingdom will be established on the earth. No matter how hard people oppose it, he will win out. But even as his victory is assured, God offers his Son to be for all people, the sinner and the saint, a refuge and a blessing.

We are far worse off than we ever thought, Tim Keller says, and far more loved that we could ever imagine. How is it that God’s Son and Anointed King can bring both the wrath and the grace of God? How is that God’s Son and Anointed King can show us the penalty of our sin and the abundance of God’s love?

If it isn’t clear yet, Psalm 2 is all about Jesus. Jesus is the promised King, the long awaited Son of God. In response to the rebellion that lies at the core of your heart and mine and all the peoples of the earth, God installed Jesus as King; but he did so in a way no one could have imagined. You see, the gospels depict the crucifixion of Jesus as his coronation ceremony. On the cross, Jesus took the throne as God’s Anointed King, and the Son of God on his wooden throne displayed for the world the wrath and fury of God. But it wasn’t the world that bore it or experienced it or crushed by it. No, the full cup of God’s wrath against sin was poured out on Jesus, God’s own Son, and not on the nations that deserved it. Not on you and me, who deserved it, but on Jesus.

So, Christ dying on the cross for the sins of the world is how the King displayed both the wrath and the grace of God. On the cross of Christ the love and justice of God meet. As Psalm 2 says, God offers his Son as a refuge for the sinner. Blessed are all who take refuge in Jesus.

And that’s where I want to end. Blessed are all who take refuge in Jesus. Notice that the psalm does not end by saying, “Blessed are all who do not sin. Blessed are all who do not rebel against God. Blessed are all who live according to God’s will.” No. Blessed are all who take refuge in Jesus.