Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: It is an absolute honor to be able to preach the text that we
[00:00:06] Speaker B: just read and proclaimed together.
[00:00:10] Speaker A: We have been going through the book of Galatians as a church, but we are taking a single Sunday hiatus to
[00:00:21] Speaker B: dig into the Gospel according to King David, which is the same gospel that we've been hearing all through Galatians.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: So because we've already gone through that particular text, we won't read it again.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: But we are going to pray and ask God's blessing on the attempt to communicate the word of God today that he would give us ears to hear, hearts that are receptive and souls that long for him more than anything else.
Pray.
Oh God, you are so good.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: We have sung of your grace that though our hearts long for all kinds of things that are empty
[00:01:18] Speaker B: and vain, you have reached down and grabbed us and called us to yourself, giving us new hearts that desire you.
We have declared that you are the Lord, that you are our only hope, and I pray that those truths sink deeply into our souls today.
Give us grace, God, to hear from you, and may you change us by the power of your spirit.
It is in the name of Christ and Christ alone. We pray. Amen.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: May 8, 1945 VE Day victory in Europe.
After nearly six years of a brutal
[00:02:20] Speaker B: worldwide war, the news spread.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Nazi Germany had surrendered.
Crowds poured into the streets, church bells rang, car horns blared, strangers embraced, people sang, and cities erupted in celebration.
A vile enemy that had devastated nations and slaughtered millions of was crippled.
And for millions of people, it was a moment of overwhelming joy. They couldn't contain themselves.
And the magnitude of that celebration matched the magnitude of the victory.
It was huge.
And in today's text we see a
[00:03:04] Speaker B: picture of a far greater celebration, of
[00:03:09] Speaker A: a far greater victory over a far greater evil.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: And the question is, will you be celebrating?
[00:03:19] Speaker A: Let's dig into the text. And the first thing that we see is that the Lord is king.
Is he yours? We see that God owns everything. Verse 1 the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Now the earth is the whole earth, every single thing, the fullness meaning literally everything, from the smallest thing to the largest. From the sand blowing over the dunes in Saudi Arabia to the peaks of Everest, from the blades of grass blowing in your backyard to the forest of Amazon, the moles tearing up my backyard, to the blue whales singing in the
[00:03:57] Speaker B: Atlantic, all is his.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: But not only does God own everything, just nature, he also owns every one.
Verse one continues the world and all those who dwell therein. Now this word world means the inhabited places. If Earth is just the whole thing. The world is specific to those places where people live. And it says that all those who
[00:04:24] Speaker B: dwell in those places are his.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: All doesn't mean some.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: It means all.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: Now, it's kind of normal for us to think this way. Like if you go around, you ask your average American, average Westerner, hey, what do you think about God? Even if they're an atheist, you go, no, no, no, for real. Like just tell me if God exists,
[00:04:44] Speaker B: what do you think about.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: They're going to think in these terms, this singular big entity that's kind of up there over everything, kind of working in mysterious ways to make things happen. But if we, if we rewind the tape a little bit and go back to the time when this psalm was written, that's not the assumption of.
In fact, it's really different.
All the surrounding nations around Israel had patron gods, these little gods that they would serve to get what they want to be satisfied. And what this psalm is declaring, it's like a war cry. It's saying, no, Yahweh, the Lord is not this little local God or a national mascot.
No, he's the God and he will not be reduced to just your wants and desires. See, what people would do is they would come over to this God and they would, you know, put food in front of it and they would worship it or whatever. And maybe that's like the fertility God
[00:05:41] Speaker B: because they want to have children.
[00:05:42] Speaker A: And then they would also have a God over here that's like the protector God because he's over the mountains. And, and, and it can help us defend ourselves from other people coming. And then over here, man, we really need a good harvest. So we're going to go with the harvest God too. And they, it was no big deal to worship all these little itty bitty gods together.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: But this God is not to be controlled or manipulated.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: He is who he is.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: He is king, and everything is his.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: So everything and everyone is made by God and for God. And this means that all are accountable to him and they are accountable to him because he made it all.
Verse 2.
For he has founded it, that being the earth upon the seas and established
[00:06:28] Speaker B: it upon the rivers.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: Now does that. Is, is David just being weird about, you know, geology? That's, that's how it works where he's going, okay, the land is floating on the seas and the rivers. No, no, no, this is poetic language.
He is, he's saying that, that the seas and the rivers resembled chaos, right? Uncontrollable. You can't handle It. And God subdued, subdued that chaos by forcefully slamming these massive chunks of earth down into them. You know those strongman competitions I think it's called like the Atlas Boulder or whatever, they pick up those huge giant spheres and they put them up on the platforms, like, imagine that. But it's, it's like cake, just taking those and slamming it into the ground.
And the logic here makes sense.
God made it, therefore he owns it. And it, we're the same way. We make something. If you create art or write a song or some kind of process, an invention, you patent it, you make it, you own it, it's yours.
And so we see very clearly that God is the creator and owner of
[00:07:35] Speaker B: everything and everyone, including you, including me.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: And so the very clear application is the Lord is king.
Is he yours?
Who has the right to rule your life?
[00:07:52] Speaker B: In our culture, it's me.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: I get to make the decisions. It's the individual. And so this idea of God is king, even though we kind of all, most of us in this room would agree with that in some part, it's still a little difficult for us to really grab onto because we don't have kings.
See, back then, when the king spoke, you listened and you didn't get to disagree. It didn't matter what you thought of it. He said, he said it, you did it or you died.
But our relationship with authority is a little complicated. Like our nation was founded on rebellion. And so it's just kind of like in our DNA. We're like, no anti authority.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: It's bad.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: Our leaders, politicians in parentheses, are supposed to do our will, right? We don't like them, we vote them out. We have options.
We choose our authority. And they, our leaders, are supposed to give us what we want to gratify our desires.
But God is not a leader elected
[00:08:58] Speaker B: to give you what you want.
He's the absolute ruler of every single part of you.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: See, our default is mine. My time, my money, my body, my stuff, my plans, my children, my church.
But the reality is that it's flipped.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: It's the literal opposite.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: All is God's.
Your life, your time, your money, your body, et cetera. It's God's time, it's God's money, it's God's body, it's God's stuff, it's God's plans, it's God's children, it's God's church, it's God's job.
And this can scare some of us because we love our self rule. We don't want to be told what to Do.
And it starts young. Just ask a 4 year old. They don't like to be told what to do.
And some of the reason why we struggle with this comes down to a, like a functional atheism or a misunderstanding
[00:09:59] Speaker B: of who God is. We don't believe that God is good.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: And so we don't want to submit
[00:10:04] Speaker B: to him because we trust ourselves more than Him. We think we're better.
But God as king is good because God is good.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: And submitting to him is an act
[00:10:14] Speaker B: of trust that he is good. And so let's think for a second.
Think about your life, all the different parts of it.
Which part are you still holding onto and saying?
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Mine.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Think about your time, how you spend it, the money you work hard to earn, how you use it, the plans that you have for your kids, this church, Whatever you're thinking about right now, write it down.
Then ask God's help that he would give you the grace of submitting that to Him.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: Because the mission of our life, mission of everyone's life, the goal of life
[00:11:10] Speaker B: is to know God, serve Him and enjoy him, because he is the King over all.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: And so there's this question now it's if God owns and rules us, then what does he want from us? And how do we relate to him and how do we get to Him?
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Well, what he wants from us is for us to be like Him, Purity, pure.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: And so the next thing we see in verses three through six is that the Lord is pure. And the question we got to ask
[00:11:46] Speaker B: ourselves is, are we?
[00:11:48] Speaker A: Look at me. In verse three, David asked the question, who shall ascend the hill of the Lord and who shall stand in his holy place? So we've got this picture of someone going up the hill of the Lord. So imagine this massive mountain and someone is walking their way up to the very top. And that's where God is, right? Because God is overall, he's big. He's above every single thing. And so how do we get up there?
The hill of the Lord. This is an idea that means God's presence. Who can stand in his holy place. That's God's presence. And all throughout the Scriptures we see the hill of the Lord resembles God's presence. From Eden to Sinai to the Temple to Zion, which is the city of God, Jerusalem.
And so the question is, who can
[00:12:35] Speaker B: be in God's presence?
The answer comes in verse four.
He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.
Well, this is someone who is totally good.
And David gives four examples of what
[00:13:01] Speaker A: this total goodness looks like in right action, right motive, right worship, right speech. And so the first one, clean hands. This is right action.
So the hands are the doing part of your body, like it does so much.
And the hands make things happen. And so these hands that the psalmist is talking about are clean. Notice it doesn't say cleaned with an ed at the end. It's clean hands. So this doesn't mean hands that were once dirty that are now washed?
[00:13:35] Speaker B: No, it means hands that have never been dirty.
Innocent hands.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: There's no wrongdoing. There's nothing to be cleaned from. There's no dirt on them.
Because in the Old Testament there was provision for being made, for being cleaned to be able to come and worship the Lord. But that's not what this is talking about. Remember, we're talking about who can be in the direct presence of God. It is someone who does the right thing and has always done the right thing.
Strike one.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: But then David ups the ante.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: It's not just that this person has right action, it's that they have right motive. The text again. And a pure heart. The heart is the innermost part of you. It's the control center, it's the GPS that leads you where you're going to go and tells you what you want to do. And so this person who can be with God does the right thing for the right reason, which the testimony of scripture all throughout, from the. From. From the law to the fulfillment of the law, Jesus is to love God
[00:14:42] Speaker B: primarily and as a byproduct, love others.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: So this person does all the right things with the right heart, which is
[00:14:51] Speaker B: out of an overflow of love for God and others. There's no manipulative motivation.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: And so out of the flow of this right motive, this right heart comes right worship.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: The text continues.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: Who does not lift up his soul to what is false. Lift up his soul is worship language.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:15:10] Speaker A: When you li think about it, you're lifting yourself up to something. You're giving yourself over to that particular thing. You are worshiping that thing. Now, soul is similar to heart.
They're very interconnected.
And so the way I would think about it is if the heart is. The GPS directs us where to go, the soul is the accelerator and how
[00:15:32] Speaker B: hard we're pressing down.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: So the heart GPS soul how hard you push the accelerator. So this is your passion, your desire, your energy that you give over to the thing you want most. And this person who can be in the presence of God does not give their passion, energy, and worship over to what is false, something that's hollow and
[00:15:54] Speaker B: unfulfilling, something that's not God.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Now, in David's day, this would have been very particularly like idols.
Stupid little things that people carve with their hands and then go, boom. God, we got the same things today, things we give ourselves over to that ultimately don't fulfill us. They're not going to satisfy us. And yet we time and time again go to those things. But this person, the person who can be in the presence of God's deepest desire is for the Lord and his glory.
And this deep desire is expressed and given over to right action, right motive, and right speech.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: Text continues. Does not swear deceitfully. So here we have an oath, a promise man, I promise I'll be at the soccer game.
You go to a wedding, a man
[00:16:44] Speaker A: and a woman look at each other and they say, I promise to give myself to you and only to you, to be faithful to you until the
[00:16:51] Speaker B: very last breath of my life.
Or if you have to ever give a courtroom testimony, you know, you raise
[00:16:57] Speaker A: your hand and you put your hand on the Bible and say, I swear
[00:16:59] Speaker B: to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: So this is using your words in a way to make promises. And so this person does not give promises that are deceitful. They don't give dishonest promises.
They don't cross their fingers when they say, yep, gonna do that. Their yes is yes and their no is no. So it's someone has full integrity.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Their word and their action are one and the same.
So the one who can stand in God's presence has right action, right motive, right worship, and right speech. They are totally good.
And as their reward, they receive total blessing.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Verse 5, he will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. So blessing is this massive idea, but I'm gonna do my best. It's basically God's favor, his delight, his protection, and his provision.
It's not just stuff. Okay, sure. It includes that. We see that through the Old Testament, when God blesses people, they. They oftentimes it's accompanied by stuff showing the blessing. But then also they lose everything and they're still blessed. So it's more than just stuff. It is actually God's blessing presence.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: And so the blessed one gets God.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: But here's something that's weird.
The totally good one doesn't just receive
[00:18:24] Speaker B: blessing or God's presence.
They receive, quote, righteousness from the God of his salvation. And so how do you receive righteousness if you're totally good?
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Well, righteousness is a big idea and so on. One aspect of it is that someone who's righteous is morally and ethically pure. That's true. But it also means vindicated or cleared from blame because you're actually innocent. So imagine someone on death row and they're about to be executed and all of a sudden DNA evidence comes in and says they definitely did not do it. 100%, no questions asked. They are righteous. They are vindicated before everybody because they didn't actually do.
[00:19:10] Speaker B: They are innocent.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: And so this person doesn't receive righteousness from God in the sense that they don't have it. It is that they are vindicated because
[00:19:19] Speaker B: they actually are righteous.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: And so the totally good one gets
[00:19:24] Speaker B: God's blessing, which is God's presence.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: And then it's not just a single person. This isn't just.
It transitions from one pure person to many pure people. Verse 6. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. There's this whole generation who are now blessed with God's presence. And so don't think of this generation as like a single block of people
[00:19:51] Speaker B: in a certain time, right? Like Gen Z, Gen Alpha Boomer.
[00:19:56] Speaker A: It's not like that.
It's describing a type or quality of people throughout time who are God seekers who seek the face of God, purely worshiping Him.
[00:20:11] Speaker B: So now let's play a fun game called who in the world does this describe?
[00:20:17] Speaker A: Name him.
Totally right?
[00:20:20] Speaker B: Action motivated by pure intention to honor God and love others, who always worships
[00:20:27] Speaker A: him in fullness all the time, never lies or says anything false.
It ain't me.
It's not you.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Just think for a second about your hands.
Think of all the things that these hands have done.
Try to think of more good than bad. I don't think you can.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: In the last week.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: And let's say you could, let's say
[00:21:00] Speaker A: you go, man, I had an awesome
[00:21:02] Speaker B: day yesterday and I did everything right.
Okay, let's get deeper.
Think about why you did those things.
Half the time we don't even know.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: One thing I was even struck with when preparing this sermon is the motivation for getting up in here and preaching.
Is it out of an overflow of love and affection and devotion to the Lord exclusively? And then also for you all, I would love to say yes, and it is true.
But there's probably also a little bit. There's a little bit of like, man, I want to do a really good job because I don't want people to think I'm stupid. And I want to make you know what I mean?
[00:21:37] Speaker B: Like mixed motivation.
Think about the things you've said. I don't even want to go there, to be honest with you. I say all kinds of crazy things.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: I knew that was coming,
[00:21:55] Speaker B: y'. All. This is a standard that is impossible to reach, but it is the standard.
[00:22:01] Speaker A: And so I don't want us to feel this moment of. It's like, well, God's not for real. This is poetic. He doesn't really mean it.
[00:22:09] Speaker B: No, this is the standard. Why?
[00:22:12] Speaker A: Why is this the standard? Well, because that's how God is, right?
[00:22:18] Speaker B: All he does, all he wants, all he says, all he desires is right.
[00:22:25] Speaker A: And so if you're going to be
[00:22:26] Speaker B: in his presence, you must be like him. You must be right. And so do you resemble Him.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: If someone were to.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: Were to watch you for a week, would they think you're like God in this way, Pure?
Who do they see?
How you live matters.
It matters a lot.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: Because sometimes some Christians, not all, they kind of have this mentality of like, well, we live under grace, right? So it doesn't really matter if I live pure. The Lord's going to forgive me.
Or they look at this text and they go, this is just to make me realize my need for God's grace, right?
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Well, I would say yes, but also he wants you to live this way.
God cares about his people's purity.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: And not seeking a pure life is to misunderstand the blessing of a pure life. It's in the same way that the person who doesn't want to submit to God as king, goes, oh, God's not good. In the same way, living this, seeking to live this kind of life, looking at God, God's law, looking at what he expects and going, ah, I don't think that's going to really make me happy. It's a misunderstanding of the blessing of a pure life. The assumption is that impurity makes me happy. In reality, holiness and happiness are tied together.
And so when you read verse four,
[00:24:03] Speaker B: how do you respond?
[00:24:05] Speaker A: There's more than three, but I'm going
[00:24:06] Speaker B: to give you three.
Apathy is. Nah, I don't care.
That's a problem.
And Paul says in Romans 2, do you presume on the riches of his kindness, meaning that he's just going to forgive you? Like, it doesn't matter what you do, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
[00:24:29] Speaker A: If you're a Christian in the room,
[00:24:30] Speaker B: I want you to understand sin hinders your fellowship with God. And if you're not a Christian in the room, I'm going to tell you, it destroys your fellowship with God. You don't have it.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: Does it cause you agony? You just look at that and you go, I'll never reach this. I'm never gonna be good enough. What's the point?
[00:24:48] Speaker B: Or does it cause you an aching in your soul that you just long to be this way?
[00:24:56] Speaker A: See, those who've experienced God's grace desire his presence more fully. The goal is to live unhindered by sin, to live a life that's fully devoted to the Lord. Hebrews 12:1 through 2 encourages us. Let us lay aside every weight and sin that clings so closely.
Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to
[00:25:19] Speaker B: Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.
[00:25:22] Speaker A: And so the right response here is to run from sin and run to the Lord. Ask him to give you a heart
[00:25:28] Speaker B: that longs to be pure, the ability to do right, and the zeal to do it with everything you have.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: And I think.
I think we're supposed to feel a
[00:25:40] Speaker B: little bit of sorrow and tension right here, because no one else wants to.
[00:25:47] Speaker A: None is.
And I think David picks up that
[00:25:50] Speaker B: that's going to happen.
That response is coming.
And so he calls for rejoicing, and we go. What he calls us to behold the glorious One who can and will purify us, the King of glory. And so what we see in the
[00:26:12] Speaker A: final three, three verses is the final
[00:26:15] Speaker B: four verses is that the Lord is glorious.
Will you behold his glory?
[00:26:21] Speaker A: So it moves to this call and response in worship, which we actually did today. So there's a command and then a question and then a response. And that formula repeats.
So the first part of seven. Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors. The gates are the entrance into God's presence. And so I think that this is communicating the gates of Jerusalem that would have been there as they. And it's a call for them to open up, because Jerusalem, Zion, is the place of God's presence. And it's calling these gates to lift their heads.
What happens when someone lifts their head? When you say, hey, chin up.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Right, they're this way, Their head's down.
[00:27:08] Speaker A: Sorrowful, they're shamed, whatever it might be.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: And he says, no, no, no, no, lift those heads up.
But it also means, I love this.
It also means stretch.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Stretch your neck out. Gates be stretched in every single direction, because the thing that's coming has too
[00:27:31] Speaker B: much glory to fit in you right now.
So why is David calling the gates, calling the gates of God's presence to open?
It's so that the King of glory may come in.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: So this king of glory is a ruler who is full of splendor and honor and purity, and then he. And he is coming into God's presence.
So this right here, the king of glory is who this whole psalm is leading up to.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: Meaning it's what this whole who, the whole psalm is about. See, this Psalm 24 is not about me. It's not about you, it's not about us.
It's about a glorious king who's glorious enough, pure enough to come into God's presence.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: And who is this king of glory?
[00:28:21] Speaker B: Is it David?
[00:28:23] Speaker A: Nope.
The psalm tells us, it asks the question in verse eight, who is this king of glory?
And then the response is, the Lord strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle. And now if you're paying attention, we got a conundrum here.
We have the gates of Jerusalem being told to fling wide open so that. So that the king of glory can come into God's presence.
Then it says, the king of glory is God.
Okay, that's wild. How can God not be in his own presence? Now, I think specifically when this was written, it's talking about the ark coming into Jerusalem. So years before, the Philistines had come in, and the Israelites were dumb and
[00:29:18] Speaker B: they took the ark out to have
[00:29:21] Speaker A: God's presence with them while they fought
[00:29:23] Speaker B: against the enemies, even though he said he was going to be with them.
[00:29:25] Speaker A: So they didn't believe them, and they used the ark like a token. But the ark was the specific place where God's presence manifested uniquely.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: Right?
[00:29:34] Speaker A: So they go out, it gets stolen by the Philistines, but then years later, David goes out, conquers, and brings it back, back to Jerusalem. And there is an absolute party going
[00:29:44] Speaker B: on as it comes back.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: David is dancing, people are hooping and hollering. They're having a good old time. So I think that this is the particular reference that David is making in this part.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: But good news, the Holy Spirit is the author of this text, and so it means more than that.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: So this king of glory, who is the Lord, is strong and mighty in battle. So we've got imagery of a king coming home victorious in battle. So the immediate context, God has rescued David and his people from their enemies. But there's a way bigger and way truer reality. The king of glory, the Lord has come, is coming back into the Lord's Presence after a fierce battle.
[00:30:33] Speaker B: Y', all, Psalm 24 is about Jesus.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: We're gonna go all the way back
[00:30:38] Speaker B: to verse one, and we're gonna go quick. So.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: So what we're called to do, this whole thing is calling us to behold this king. So we behold the Creator King. Jesus is the one who made everything. Colossians 1:16 says that all things were created through him, and for him we're also to behold the pure and blessed king. Verses 3 through 6. Jesus is the one that meets the standard of total goodness. Everything he did and every reason why he did it, and every intention of his heart. His full desire was to please the Father. And he spoke. He didn't just merely speak the truth. He is the truth. Hebrews 7:26 says that he is holy, innocent, unstained. Jesus himself says of himself in John 8:29, I always do the things that
[00:31:32] Speaker B: are pleasing to the Father.
He, and he alone is the righteous one who can stand in God's presence.
And you might be sitting here thinking,
[00:31:44] Speaker A: well, that's great for him.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: Now what?
Well, we're also called to behold the conquering king.
We see this in different places. Jesus coming into, quote, God's presence, his triumphal entry.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: This is when he got onto a
[00:32:07] Speaker B: donkey to fulfill a specific prophecy from
[00:32:11] Speaker A: Zachariah to go into Jerusalem, right as Passover is starting. And everybody's going, oh, the king we've been waiting for, the warrior king. He's coming, and it's this man, Jesus. And so he comes in and people are throwing their coats down. They're ripping palm branches down and throwing on the floor, displaying their submission to him. And also that he's come to bring peace, because he's coming into Jerusalem, the holy city of Zion.
[00:32:41] Speaker B: But then they turned on him.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: They were praising his name one minute
[00:32:45] Speaker B: and cursing him the next, calling him to die.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: And so we see another hill, the
[00:32:50] Speaker B: hill of Golgotha, the place of the skull, the cross.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: This is the battle that he was strong and mighty to win.
His battle was not against
[00:33:03] Speaker B: physical enemies, but it was from his battle was against sin, death and evil. And those pure hands that he used to bless were pierced, and blood ran down them.
A spear pierced his pure heart, full of love for God and others.
[00:33:21] Speaker A: And he gave up his soul to the glory of his Father, to the point of this horrific death. And he spoke the absolute truth that it is finished and our sin debt is paid for.
[00:33:34] Speaker B: He gave his pure life for our polluted lives.
His resurrection.
He was vindicated.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: He was declared righteous as verse 5
[00:33:52] Speaker B: says by his resurrection from the dead, proving that he is the pure, blessed One. He is who he says he is.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: And then he ascends to the Father, literally goes up. Who can ascend the hill of the Lord? Who can ascend into his presence? The one who literally went into his presence. He was here and then he was there. They watched him go up.
[00:34:15] Speaker B: He's the victorious king who entered the Father's presence and now stands at his right hand.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: But he didn't just win this victory over sin, death and the evil ones
[00:34:23] Speaker B: so he could enter into God's presence alone.
He came so we could enter into God's presence.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: And this psalm calls again for resounding worship. Lift up your heads, O gates. And lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. And so now we're in a fever pitch of worship. People are just screaming it at this point. Why? Verse 10. Who is this king of glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory. So now the King of glory is with hosts. This is the heavenly army. These are war spiritual warriors who are now coming in with their king into God's presence. I think that this host of. Of a spiritual army is the generation of God seekers we see from verse 6.
The Blessed King of glory is bringing a blessed generation with him into God's presence. Y'.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: All. That's the church.
His vindicated victory over sin and death wasn't just for himself to be with the Father. It's so we can be with the Father.
Look at what your king has accomplished for you.
[00:35:34] Speaker A: All the blessings of this pure, blessed one belong to Christ. And then what he promises is that through faith in him, we share in those blessings and we become a generation who seek God's face. Paul helps us out here in Ephesians 1. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
[00:35:52] Speaker B: us in Christ with every spiritual blessing
[00:35:56] Speaker A: in the heavenly places. He promises that for all who put their faith and trust in him, they will receive the Holy Spirit living inside of us, the very presence of God in them. And we have direct access to God through Christ. Here's the truth.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: If you believe in Jesus today, in
[00:36:13] Speaker A: Christ, God says you are pure.
[00:36:18] Speaker B: And so when he looks at you, he doesn't see filthy hands. He sees them clean.
[00:36:23] Speaker A: He doesn't see mixed motivation.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: He sees a pure heart that loves him.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: He doesn't see someone who worships literally everything else almost all the time, seeking satisfaction in things that are empty.
[00:36:38] Speaker B: No, he sees one that loves him fully and he sees one who speaks perfectly.
See, you don't become pure to get to God on your own.
It's through Christ.
So the one who ascended to the Father descended to come get us.
He declares that we are righteous by faith in him, and then he makes us like him through Christ. God's making you pure, so he's declared you pure, and, and now he's making you pure into the person he calls you.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: And so what we're being told to do here is behold this king that comes in. And there's this interesting thing that happens is as we behold him, we become like Him. First John, three, two. John writes, beloved, we are God's children now.
And what we will be, meaning, glorified, perfected, has not yet appeared.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: But we know when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: There's something here of with beholding Christ causes us to become like him.
[00:37:53] Speaker B: And so behold him, look to him, and you may be sitting there going, okay, great.
What does that look like? This isn't going to be a shocking application.
You behold him in his word, you seek him in prayer.
You worship him with his people.
You obey his commands as your king. You serve people made in his image, no matter who they are, and you speak his good news to sinners. And as you see him, as you
[00:38:30] Speaker A: read this word and you see, oh, this is who Jesus is. Oh, this is who Jesus is, you become like him.
[00:38:38] Speaker B: You become what God already calls you, pure.
And so behold him and then believe Him.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: So when you go back and you read verse four and you realize that's
[00:38:50] Speaker B: not, you let that catapult you into his grace once again, because that's who he is.
[00:38:57] Speaker A: And if you trust him, that's who
[00:39:00] Speaker B: you are and that's who you become.
Let it be a springboard of praise
[00:39:05] Speaker A: and believe that all of his promises are true.
[00:39:10] Speaker B: He is coming.
He will lead us into God's full, unfettered, unhindered presence.
And on that day, you and I will become everything that we were made to be.
These hands will be innocent.
This heart will love God fully and love you and love you all perfectly.
We will only ever worship Him.
We won't give ourselves over to anything else. And we will proclaim his excellencies and goodness and glory forever and ever.
And until that day, we'd just do now what we will do then to hold Him.
Well, in time. The songs and cheers over v e Day quieted.
Americans were hit with the sobering reality that the war wasn't actually over.
It still raged on in the Pacific against Japan.
[00:40:17] Speaker A: Victory had come in Europe, but the
[00:40:20] Speaker B: final piece was still coming.
[00:40:23] Speaker A: In his speech announcing the defeat of
[00:40:25] Speaker B: the Nazi regime, President Truman said this.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: He called upon every American to stick to his post until the last battle is won.
Until that day, let no man abandon
[00:40:36] Speaker B: his post or slacken his efforts.
Brothers and sisters, our war with the
[00:40:41] Speaker A: flesh, temptation, evil powers, Satan, hurt, disappointment, struggle, fear, sickness,
[00:40:49] Speaker B: sadness, and death is not unfortunately over.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: God's story of making sinners into saints is still being written. And you and I get to be part of that story.
[00:41:02] Speaker B: We know how that story ends.
[00:41:04] Speaker A: Our king is coming back. He's going to wipe out all evil. He's going to lead us into an eternity where we will bask in God's glory forever and ever.
So until that day, we follow our King.
We trust him, we believe what he
[00:41:22] Speaker B: says, and we keep calling others to do likewise.
We don't abandon our post or slacken our efforts.
So trust him.
Submit more of your life over to his rule.
Pursue the purity you have in him already, and look forward to the day when we'll line the streets of heaven where our celebration will make the massive celebration of VE Day look more like a funeral.
