Psalm 110
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
A little over 12 years ago I was the worship and youth pastor of a church in the Austin area.
Pastor Matt, Jennifer, and Jaida were just camping near that church.
At the church we had a prayer garden and anybody who wanted to could get 4 to 8 feet of space to plant vegetables fruits whatever would fit in your space.
They were all raised beds and when you were standing 10 to 20 feet away from it all you could see were the plants.
The Lord bless the garden and some of the plants were so large it was amazing.
But when you got close to the garden you start to see there was a little path in between those raised beds.
One of the guys in our church laid paver stones around the raised beds all the way through so that you can get every part of that garden.
Psalm 110 is like that garden.
We could spend all day digging deep in the soil of Psalm 110, but we are going to focus on the three main points David didn't want us to miss. We will walk on those paver stones and harvest three amazing truths about our Messiah Jesus.
Teaching
Teaching
Let’s read Psalm 110 all together first:
A Psalm of David.
1 The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”
2 The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies!
3 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.
4 The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
5 The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.
6 He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth.
7 He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head.
The first line that says “A Psalm of David” is part of the Psalm. Whenever you see a title to the Psalm, we have to remember that these words are Scripture. It wasn’t until the 1500s when verses were added.
Psalm 110 (ESV)
A Psalm of David.
The titles are part of verse one.
With this Psalm it is important for us to know that David is the inspired author who wrote this Psalm as we will see in a minute.
We have the testimony of Jesus and Peter that David wrote this Psalm in the NT as well.
All three of the Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke record Jesus’s words about this Psalm.
We’ll just look at Mark’s account today.
Jesus’ affirms this Psalm is written by David and speaks about the Messiah in Mark 12:
(Kidner, Derek. Psalms 73-150. Kidner Classic Commentaries. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008, 427.)
Peter also makes a distinction between David and the Lord the Psalm speaks about in his sermon on the day of Pentacost
33 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.
34 For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand,
35 until I make your enemies your footstool.” ’
36 Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
(Kidner, Psalms 73-150, 427)
Peter says Jesus is both Lord and Christ.
Psalm 110 is a prophetic Psalm that is describing the Messiah.
Christ means anointed one in Greek.
The Hebrew equivalent to Christ is the word Messiah.
Jesus is the Messiah.
In the New Testament, Psalm 110 is one of the most quoted Psalms of all time.
You may be thinking:
David, the King of Israel, is calling someone else his Lord?!?
We’ll get there in minute, but first let’s look at the structure of this Psalm.
The psalm has three main sections: verses 1-3, Verse 4, and Verses 5-7.
Verse 1-3 and 5-7 mirror each other pointing to the main verse of the Psalm in verse 4.
Let’s dive in to this exciting Psalm!
1. The Messiah is the evil-crushing King.
1. The Messiah is the evil-crushing King.
1 The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”
2 The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies!
3 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.
Right off the bat we got some things to figure out, we’ve got one Lord talking to another Lord.
What’s going on here?!?
I promise we’ll get there in just a minute, but first we’ve got to look at the word “says.”
1 The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”
The Lord says to my Lord
In the original language this is a much stronger word than says.
In Hebrew, it is an “oracle”.
It is a prophetic term that means “utterance, declaration, revelation.”
I only found two of the major translations that render it this way.
Here’s how the Christian Standard Bible says it:
1 This is the declaration of the Lord to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.”
Allen Ross talking about this term says:
“The term emphasizes that this is a divine oracle, an announcement of the will and plan of God; and it ensures the certainty of its being fulfilled.”
(Ross, Allen P. A Commentary on the Psalms. Vol. 3: 90-150. Kregel Exegetical Library. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2016, 345.)
David has received this divine oracle by the Holy Spirit as we saw in Jesus’s words earlier.
36 David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.” ’
Alright, we have a declaration of the Lord so let’s sort out whats going on with these two uses of “the Lord.”
(Discussion of Lord from Ross, Allen P. A Commentary on the Psalms. Vol. 3: 90-150. Kregel Exegetical Library. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2016, 346.)
The first word Lord is the divine name this is Yahweh.
One thing the ESV does to help us out a little bit is it always puts the divine in all caps with the first letter normal and the others small caps.
Whenever you are reading an ESV and you see Lord with small caps then it means Yahweh.
This is the name God reveled to Moses and is the covenant name of God.
The second Lord in the original language is the word Adonai.
This word is used of God, for instance Psalm 90 use Adonai.
1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
It often refers to human superiors.
This word does not tell David that his coming Lord is divine, but it does give a hint.
David does see that this coming Lord is his sovereign master.
Now that we got that all cleared up we can move on:
We could say the first part this way:
Yahweh declares to my Adonai:
1 The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”
Sitting at Yahweh’s right hand means that this king was exalted to power and dominion and honor in heaven before he establishes his reign on earth.
No one would have more authority and power than this king, apart from Yahweh Himself.
(Ross, Allen P. A Commentary on the Psalms. Vol. 3: 90-150. Kregel Exegetical Library. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2016, 347.)
The picture David is painting here is enemies being crushed under the foot of this King.
The word enemies shares a root with enmity in Genesis 3, this King crushing his enemies under foot.
14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
The word bruise is better translated “crush.” The offspring will crush the serpent’s head.
In the New Testament, Paul declares that Jesus is the King, seated at the Father’s right hand who will crush His enemies and be the head of all things:
20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,
21 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.
22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church,
We’ll look at some other verses in the NT in a minute.
Jesus, our Messiah, is the evil-crushing King.
I mentioned earlier that the structure of this Psalm points to verse 4 being the most important.
When I was growing up we’d go get these huge BBQ sandwiches for dinner sometimes.
I always knew we were there because they had this huge arrow that had flashing lights pointing at the store.
SHOW ARROW SIGN SLIDE
SHOW ARROW SIGN SLIDE
David is doing that with the parts of this Psalm.
In verse 1 and 7, he talks about Yahweh installing the King.
Coming in from there, David talks about Yahweh commissioning the King to conquer in verse 2 and has the King conquering in verse 6.
Verse 3 and 6 talks about the same day when the King will come on the day of power and the day of wrath.
And then right in the middle of the Psalm we see David’s main point!
He wants to make sure we know the most important thing about this king!
This King is a priest...
What?!?
2. The Messiah is the eternal High Priest.
2. The Messiah is the eternal High Priest.
4 The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
What?!?
Let’s back up a moment.
The evil-crushing King is also the eternal High Priest?
We need to understand something about Israel kings and priests to see how shocking this would have been for the original hearers.
Rewind in your minds to Genesis.
We studied last year in Life Group about Jacob, who’s name was changed to Israel.
He had twelve sons, that became the 12 tribes of Israel.
One of those tribes is Judah.
The tribe of Judah had over and over been prophesied to have a great king come from that line.
David is from Judah.
He is the greatest king in the OT, every time a king does what pleases the Lord, then he is compared to David.
Now, we know from Matthew 1 that Jesus is a descendant of David in the tribe of Judah.
17 So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.
Great! Psalm 110 has an evil-crushing King coming as the Messiah!
Jesus fits right in...
But now we are verse 4, and the Lord doesn’t just declare that the Messiah will be a priest forever, He swears to it!
He says He will not change His mind about it!
Here is where you have a problem as an Israelite listening to these words.
Kings came from Judah, but priests, they came from the tribe of Levi.
8 At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord to stand before the Lord to minister to him and to bless in his name, to this day.
There’s no way for Jesus to be from the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Levi.
So in the Israelites understanding, Jesus couldn’t be the Messiah.
But David gives us more information.
Jesus isn’t just a priest forever.
Look at verse 4 again:
4 The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
After the order of Melchizedek.
The name Melchizedek means “king of righteousness.”
In the Bible, he is first mentioned in Genesis 14.
I invite you to go read Genesis 14 about Melchizedek, but for now I’ll give you the run down.
Melchizedek was a Jebusite priest of “God Most High”.
He was also the King of Salem, as in Jerusalem.
So in Melchizedek, priesthood and kingship were united as they would be in the Messiah.
(Kidner, Derek. Psalms 73-150. Kidner Classic Commentaries. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008, 430. Hebrews discussion also.)
The author of Hebrews helps us understand this idea by emphasizing Christ as King in the early chapters of the book and focuses on Jesus as Priest in the later chapters.
In Chapter 7 of Hebrews, the author looks at how Jesus is the eternal priest after the of Melchizedek:
20 And it was not without an oath. For those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath,
21 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.’ ”
22 This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.
23 The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office,
24 but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever.
25 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.
Jesus is the evil-crushing King.
He is also the eternal High Priest.
But David wants to show us one more aspect of this coming Messiah:
3. The Messiah is the exalted Warrior.
3. The Messiah is the exalted Warrior.
5 The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.
6 He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth.
7 He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head.
David is reminding us that the enthronement of the Priest-King is not the end of the story.
It is a prelude to world conquest to come.
One commentator had this to say about these passages:
“In New Testament terms, we have moved on from Hebrews to Revelation.”
(Kidner, Derek. Psalms 73-150. Kidner Classic Commentaries. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008, 431. Following picture of the Warrior too.)
We’ll look at Revelation in a minute, it will not be scene any less terrible to verse 6:
6 He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth.
The Psalm draws a picture of a situation still in movement.
When it says He will “shatter chiefs” the word shatter is the same word as above in Genesis 3.
The word better translated crushed.
The word for chiefs is actually singular and can mean head.
The Messiah will crush THE head of the enemy.
This is the same thing we saw in Genesis 3 earlier:
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
Revelation gives us some vivid scenes of the Messiah’s final victory.
But in Psalm 110 w see the exalted Warrior following up his initial victory over sin, until all His enemies are destroyed in His final victory.
Application
Application
So how do we apply Psalm 110 to our lives?
Verse 3 helps us here.
3 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 word used for offer freely is the same word for freewill offering.
Our lives become our response to our King, Priest, and Warrior.
Paul puts it this way in Romans 12:
1 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.
2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Our spiritual act of worship is to offer ourselves body and mind to the service of our great King!
We also must receive the offering our eternal High Priest made for sin once and for all.
Look at Hebrews 10:14
14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Sanctified is a big word for God freeing us more and more from sin and making us look more and more like Jesus.
(Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Second Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020, 1523.)
The author of Hebrews explains how the Holy Spirit sanctifies us in the next few verses:
15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,”
17 then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
He writes the His laws on our hearts.
This is the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
When you trust Jesus for salvation, you become a new creation, and the Spirit begins to show you what the Lord desires and what He doesn’t desire.
The Holy Spirit will remember our sins and lawless deeds no more.
This just means He won’t count our sins against us.
Jesus has paid it all!
Christ is at the right hand of the Father until He comes again.
In His second coming, things will be very different, we will see Him as the exalted warrior of Revelation 19!
11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.
12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself.
13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.
14 And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.
15 From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.
16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.
If you do not know Jesus as your eternal priest, then you are left to pay for your sins eternally.
The horrors of Revelation describe the first death, but after judgment, those who don't know the Messiah will be eternally separated from God.
11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them.
12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.
13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done.
14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
Trust Jesus today as your King and Priest then when
He comes again you will be eagerly waiting for Him.
27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
προσευχωμεθα
Communion
Communion
Christ’s blood “to bear the sins of many”
Let's drink as we remember He’s coming to save us who are eagerly waiting for him.
Christ’s body crushed to deal with sin
Let's eat as we remember He’s coming to save us who are eagerly waiting for him.