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[0:00] Psalm 110, we're going to begin in verse 1, and we're going to read the whole thing and hear the word of the Lord. The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

[0:15] The Lord will stretch forth your strong scepter from Zion, saying, rule in the midst of your enemies. Your people will volunteer freely in the day of your power.

[0:27] In holy array from the womb of the dawn, your youth are to you as the dew. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.

[0:37] You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at your right hand. He will shatter kings in the day of his wrath. He will judge among the nations.

[0:49] He will fill them with corpses. He will shatter the chief men over a broad country. He will drink from the brook by the wayside. Therefore, he will lift up his head.

[1:02] Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the reading of your word. Thank you that you've not left us without the knowledge we need to know who you are and how we are to live before you.

[1:14] And I pray, Lord, that you would use this sermon in our hearts. Let it be sticking very close to the text. And use this to change us and to help us to be more like you.

[1:28] We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. So I've been on this series. We're talking about the offices of Christ. We've talked about Christ as the prophet, priest.

[1:39] And today we come to talk about him as king. And as I was putting together the sermon and as I was thinking about the whole thing, I've titled the whole series from here till Christmas Day, Rejoice.

[1:52] And I very much wanted to bring forward this idea of rejoicing in the king. And as you just look at the text and you begin to see it, this rejoicing in the king is going to be something a little different than rejoicing.

[2:04] There is a little bit of fear that comes in on the backside of this. And I'm just being honest because as you look at the text and you see what it says, it elicits for me a rejoicing, but a rejoicing also kind of like when I was a little kid and my father would come into the room, I was glad he was home, but I had a little bit of fear because I had been misbehaving.

[2:30] You know what I'm saying? And so there's that balance that we're to rejoice in the Lord. He is our delight. We're to treasure the Lord. We're to be thrilled with him, to be satisfied with him.

[2:44] But we're also to fear the Lord. Proverbs tell us that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. So as we go through this, I want you to rejoice, but I also want you to fear the Lord.

[2:57] And from this psalm, there's two, well, there's really four things, but I'm going to put them into two points this morning so that we can kind of see what we're seeing about the king because the king is all through this psalm.

[3:15] So here they're going to be. We're going to look first at the powerful spiritual king. He's a powerful spiritual king. And then we're going to look at him being a priestly judging king.

[3:27] A priestly judging king. So that's verses one through three is that he's a powerful spiritual king. Well, let me show you why I say he's a powerful king from verses one through three.

[3:39] You'll notice that he takes up the place of honor at the right hand all through the Old Testament. The right hand is the main hand of power, dignity, and honor. If someone is sitting on the right hand, they are ruling and reigning along with the one who sits upon the throne.

[3:56] If you save someone, if you help someone, you've helped them with your right hand. Your right hand is a strength to be able to lift them up and to help them.

[4:07] So Yahweh says to Adonai, take the place of honor, sit at the right hand. That's what verse one is saying to us. But secondly, we see his power because in verse one, it tells us that he's going to subdue his enemies.

[4:24] He's going to subdue his enemies. He will make the enemies of the sun a footstool for the feet of the sun. And you got that image in your head?

[4:37] The sun is sitting upon a throne. He has a footstool and that footstool consists of his enemies. Now that ought to bring to your remembrance a verse from Genesis 3, verse 15, that says this, The promise of God is that the sin bringer, serpent, the devil, who came into the garden to deceive Eve, to tempt Adam, would have his head crushed by the offspring of the woman.

[5:18] This is what we call the first promise of the gospel in the Bible. God promised that the offspring of the woman would have the enemy under his feet.

[5:29] And this is something that Christ fulfills. You can see this in a couple of places. You can see that at his death, he does defeat Satan. Hebrews 2, verse 14 says, Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death he might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.

[5:54] One of the things you need to understand and believe is that at the death of Jesus, he rendered powerless the devil. Amen?

[6:06] Okay. Like, that's not a good thing? That's a great thing. He has rendered powerless the devil. But there's another part to his fulfilling of this promise, and that's going to be at his return.

[6:21] At his return, we can see in the places like Romans 16, 20, that the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. He is not done with Satan, although he has been rendered powerless.

[6:34] It is what we call the already and not yet. That which is already done, already accomplished, already fulfilled, and things that are yet to be fulfilled.

[6:45] That's the tension of the Bible, and it is always there. Christ has rendered powerless the devil, but Satan is not his only enemy that will be under his feet.

[6:57] The rest of his enemies, think about this, sin and the sinful nature. This world, when we say this world, what we're talking about is we're talking about the corrupt world system that exists out there because of the collaboration of all sinners in the world, because of the curse that is upon this world, this world system is out there.

[7:22] It's the worldliness that is there. That is also the enemy of God. Death, we know, is the last enemy that anyone, any human, anyone made in the image of God who does not exit the kingdom of darkness is also the enemy of Christ.

[7:51] His power is seen also in the fact that his dominion starts in Jerusalem and extends out. He says in verse 2 that Jehovah will extend the reign of his son starting in Jerusalem at Mount Zion.

[8:07] It will then consume the rest of the cosmos. That is his power. But he's a powerful and spiritual king.

[8:17] So let's bring that spiritual part in and then make some application of this, right? We see the idea of him being a spiritual king because it says in verse 2 that he will rule in the midst of his enemies.

[8:29] He will rule in the midst of his enemies. He is a king whose borders cannot be confined by someone else bordering up to him. His borders are endless.

[8:41] His rule, his kingdom are endless. That's why he rules in the midst of his enemies. The point is that his kingdom is spiritual and coexists at the same time as the realm and the rule of men.

[8:57] That's what Jesus was talking about to Pilate, right? In John chapter 18 verse 36 that my kingdom is not of this world. It's not of this realm. It is a spiritual kingdom that exists now.

[9:12] The other part about his spiritual reign we see in his people willingly fighting this holy war. I want you to think about this. There in verse 3 his kingdom impacts and influences the hearts of people in such a way that they willingly enter into a war.

[9:30] In the verse right there it says that they will freely give themselves. It's one Hebrew word and what it means is free will offering. If you've ever studied the book of Leviticus you know they got all these sacrifices over and over and over again but one of them is a free will offering.

[9:46] Just on your own out of your own free will you would just give to the Lord because you love the Lord because you wanted to do some sort of worship towards him. So these people are offering themselves.

[9:59] They are the sacrifice. They willingly give themselves for the Lord on the day of his power as his army. They volunteer to be a part of this war with him.

[10:13] Matter of fact the day of his power that word power is actually the word for army. So they also will dress in holy array. That's what the new American standard says is holy array.

[10:25] King James says the beauties of holiness. They'll clothe themselves with holiness. Now okay so get the picture here right. So we got this powerful God who's going to subdue all of his enemies and he's going to keep subduing them until that day and at the same time all of his people will volunteer and be a part of this army but this army is made up of people who don't wear chain mail who don't wear Kevlar but they wear holiness and their weapons are not the weapons of our wars but they're the weapons of the Bible of prayer and of the gospel.

[10:59] And so here he is subduing all of his enemies all of his people come we gather in this army with him and we fight this spiritual battle with him. And that is the image of this powerful spiritual king.

[11:15] So the question is is what does this mean for you and I today? One of the things we can take away from this that we need to believe and understand is that those who are the enemies of Christ are our enemies as well.

[11:39] And when we think about Satan that seems obvious. I don't think any Christian I know of ever has a problem with the idea that Satan is Jesus' enemy and he's your enemy as well.

[11:51] And everybody would look around and kind of go like yeah that's right he's our enemy as well. And when we start talking about sin or we start talking about this world system or if we talk about death none of us really struggle and see the problem with such a thing.

[12:06] our struggle comes when we start talking about those that we love who refuse to follow after Christ.

[12:21] Philippians chapter 3 verse 18 Paul puts it this way for many walk of whom I have often told you and now tell you even weeping that they are enemies of the cross of Christ.

[12:36] maybe it's your friends maybe it's your family maybe it's a spouse a boss a neighbor a co-worker if they are not Christians then they are enemies of Christ and if they are enemies of Christ they are your enemies as well.

[13:02] it's not as though it's on the front of their minds it's not as though it's forward in their conscience it's not as though they walk around going like I hate Jesus none of that is there but the problem is is that because they refuse to bow to the king they stay in the kingdom of darkness and I know that that's a tough thought I know it's not a pleasant thought to think to yourself about your loved ones and say well they're my enemies too because I don't feel enmity with them I don't feel anything that's got us opposite of one another so so what am I supposed to do if they're my enemies what am I supposed to do well let's see what Christ is doing and see if that gives us a hint about what we should do what did I say he's doing as this powerful king he is subduing his enemies he is subduing his enemies how is he subduing his enemies well first of all he is ruling and reigning right now you need to understand that if there's ever a thought that sometimes gets lost and gets forgotten it is that he is on the throne right now ruling and reigning

[14:25] Ephesians chapter 1 verse 20 through 21 it begins in the middle of a sentence and I apologize for that but that's just the way we've got to work it because this sentence is so long that we would have to break in but it's he brought about he brought it about in Christ when he raised him from the dead so we're talking about Christ being raised from the dead seated at his right hand in heavenly places Psalm 110 verse 1 verse 21 far above all rule all authority all power and all dominion and every name that is named so he is seated there above all that's why there's that song above all right but there's the last phrase I want you to see he is seated upon this throne not only in this age this age is right here right now as you're listening to my voice this age is making one more passing moment so long as he tarries his coming it will always be this age no matter what else is going to transpire no matter what else happens in this world until the second coming it is always this age and in this age he is ruling and reigning now he has authority over everything it's all his and even if it doesn't look that way

[15:46] Hebrews 2 8 he still rules he still reigns this age and the age to come that makes up all of time so he rules and reigns for all time now why is that important it's important because now that he is there upon the throne after his resurrection and ascension he is subduing his enemies and he's doing so in two ways number one and I'm just talking about I'm not going to talk about Satan and everything else I'm just talking about our loved ones how is he subduing them if they are made in his image then some of them he is subduing by the gospel I love Romans chapter 5 verse 10 for if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his son much more having been reconciled we shall be saved by his life let me tell you something you you were once an enemy of Christ you once walked in the way that you wanted to go you once did not want him to be the boss of your life you refused to bow the knee but in kindness in the gospel he reconciled you to himself and the way he is going to subdue many of our loved ones is the exact same way changing their hearts by the gospel so that they come willingly bowing the knee to him amen what kindness is that to take people who are enemies and make them his children

[17:38] I will say there is a second half to it and there will be those who just refuse to bow and for them judgment day awaits I just want you to know that for our purposes we don't know when judgment day is coming but so long as there is breath in the lungs there is hope and that brings us to what it is we need to do and I want you to look at 2 Corinthians 5 18 through 20 what do we need to do since he is subduing by the gospel 2 Corinthians 5 18 says now all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not counting the trespasses against them and he has committed to us the word of reconciliation therefore we are ambassadors for Christ as though

[18:51] God were making an appeal through us so we beg you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God here is what we need to do we need to take up this ministry that the apostles have given to us they've passed on to us and that ministry is a ministry of reconciliation we were once enemies of God we have been reconciled to God now we have a ministry in which we're seeking to reconcile others to God and every time every time we preach the gospel every time we share the gospel every time we spread the gospel in any way it is as though God is making his appeal through us and so we say on the behalf of Christ be reconciled to God you and I need to share the gospel with others and let me just say this in a couple of ways and give some practical things and then I'm going to move on every person who has been reconciled to Christ has a responsibility to share the gospel it's not just my job it is my job but it is also yours and the sharing of the gospel starts here in the pulpit and gets all the way to the pew and out and that's why

[20:12] I pray things like let us be a light let us be salt because we're supposed to be missionaries when we leave this place I heard of one church they had a sign over their back door that said you know welcome to the mission field or now you're going into the mission field so that every time you left the building you understood you're going out to be a missionary that's the way our mindset needs to be we have a responsibility to share the gospel everywhere with everyone that we possibly can so what does that mean we need to do number one start by praying for lost people you got somebody in your family that's not a Christian pray for them and don't be praying one of these prayers that doesn't mean it right don't be praying one of these things it's like man Lord I just hope that you would get a hold of them what?

[21:04] I hope? it's like the guy coming to Jesus saying like if you can would you make my son well and Jesus says if I can who are you talking to here? I'm talking to the king of the universe and so we say Lord my loved one save them whatever it takes save them open their eyes help them to believe save them second bring them to church with you because I'm going to preach the gospel we sing the gospel you never know what it is that God's going to use to get a hold of someone third give them a tract if you don't have a gospel tract on you get some get one that you like get one you're not embarrassed of right?

[21:52] there's some of them that I look at and I'm going like I'm so embarrassed of that thing I'm not going to give to anybody but there's some I love you know I love them they're great but we're all a little different so it's okay if yours is different from mine let's get some gospel tracts hand them out give them away fourth read through the Bible with them I look at you and say I'm not sure I believe all that so would you read the Bible with me let's just you and I once a week we'll get together we'll read through a section of the Bible together do you know why I say that?

[22:20] because there's nothing more powerful than the word of God just Charles Spurgeon said that the the Bible the word of God is a lion just turn it loose just turn it loose let me just say one final word to those that are not Christians before I move to the second point if you're not a Christian you need to understand where you stand with the Lord and that is that you are his enemy you are his enemy you have broken his law you have rebelled against him you try to be the boss of your own life you try to do things your way you try to make the world shape around you and you know it and the thing is is that God will not let the wicked go unpunished but the good news is this he's in the business of changing enemies into children

[23:27] I love the verse we read a while ago Romans 5 10 but right before that Romans 5 8 that God demonstrated his own love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us and you might be an enemy right now but there is hope for you there is hope because you're breathing and I say to you repent of your sin turn to Christ and be saved today well secondly we see that Christ is not only this powerful spiritual king but he is also a priestly judging king and on his priesthood I'm just gonna say to you go listen to last week's sermon alright so we've dealt with the priesthood verse 4 that was last week's sermon so I'm just gonna skip that material move on right I just wanna get to the last part here this judging king let me show you why I say he's judging king verse 5 it says he will shatter the kings verse 6 he will judge among the nations verse 6 again he will fill the nations with corpses verse 6 again he will shatter the chief men and that chief men the chief there is the word head so that again goes back to

[24:40] Genesis 3 15 that he will crush the head of the serpent this is the point Christ Jesus the savior of the world is also the judge of the world never never forget that don't think to yourself that it's not Jesus who judges Jesus judges and he is the judge of the living and the dead as a matter of fact in John chapter 5 verse 27 Jesus says that the father gave him authority to execute judgment because he's the son of man he is the one who will judge the living and the dead he is the one who will call us to give an account of our lives he is the one before whom we will all stand 2nd Corinthians 5 10 we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ each one may give recompense for his deeds in the body according to what he has done whether good or bad according to verse 9 we should do everything we can to be pleasing to the

[25:42] Lord we all stand before him and Christians I just want to kind of deal with you for just a second because for us to be pleasing to the Lord we've got to understand where our sin comes from if we've got to live in such a way that to be pleasing to the Lord and one day we're going to stand before his judgment seat and he's going to marshal out everything do not be fooled do not be thinking to yourself you're not going to stand there and this is not going to happen to you it will happen I'm sorry I wish I could tell you that it's going to be different but then I would be telling you that Santa Claus exists you understand what I'm saying I'm just going to tell you crazy things sorry if that offended you but there we go the thing is this the thing is this is that we're going to stand before him in judgment and he's going to marshal out everything now the good news for us as believers is that he's also going to bring out his righteousness and we're covered but I want you to understand where does our sin come from!

[26:50] Peter says in verse 15 explain the parable to us and Jesus says are you still lacking also an understanding do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is eliminated digestion verse 18 but the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart and those defile the man for out of the heart come evil thoughts murders adulteries fornication thefts false witness and slanders let's read that again slow it down for out of the heart comes evil thoughts murders adulteries fornic fornic fornic thefts false witness slanders!

[27:59] come from where? the heart unlike our culture in the Bible the heart is not the seat of emotions emotions in the Bible the seat of emotions are the kidneys so you don't say I love you with all my heart in the Bible you say I love you with all my or with both of my kidneys somebody's going to write that on a valentine card come February I just I just know it in the Bible the heart is the core of the person you think out of your heart you rejoice out of your heart we sing and make melody to the Lord out of our heart we make decisions from our heart it's the core of the person and the sin that we commit comes from our heart when we try to look for other causes of sin we're going to miss this and we're not going to live pleasing to the

[29:20] Lord we sin not because we didn't get enough sleep last night we sin not because we lack opportunity we sin not because we're in great suffering we sin because even though we're Christians our hearts are still wicked you see here is the heart of a human before Christ it is hard and it is dark and it is wicked but when we trust Christ he covers us with the righteousness of Christ when I say cover I mean he covers and he doesn't change he covers us with his righteousness so when the father looks at us he sees the righteousness of his son but you and I are still wicked that's why

[30:22] Martin Luther said we are at the same time both sinners and saints you know that experience you know that you love the Lord you you follow him you know if you were to die you go to heaven but you also know you struggle with sin you struggle with your anger you struggle with lust you struggle with greed you struggle with all kinds of complaining that's because you're covered in his is meant to conform to the image of Christ so we have to see first that the sin comes from the heart and it's our fault not anyone else's let me see if I can put this into real life for you Michelle and I were taking a trip we were going to go see her family they lived up in Cherino Texas so it meant we had to drive through Lufkin Texas this is while we lived!

[31:19] Port Lavaca and I'm just going to tell you this is probably about seven years ago don't judge me I'm just saying you'll see why so we're driving along and we're in Lufkin Texas and we've got the loop there in Lufkin Texas and we're going to try to make a turn and we start talking about needing to stop to get some food and we're kind of hungry and the first thing that I'm always thinking about wing stop and Michelle is like I'm not very hungry and I'm like well okay she says how about we just go get some ice cream instead and I'm like okay you know I can do that I like ice cream particularly marble slab so that's where we're going we're going to marble slab and so we pull up into marble slab and now they've got this stuff where they will put the ice cream together for you right and they've got all these different mix ins that they'll do and they've got one that they're going to have rocky road and

[32:23] I'm looking at the picture I love rocky road you got the nuts it was walnuts! and I make sure she understands that this rocky road I want the marshmallows and everything she gets all the ice cream there gets the walnuts and reaches over and grabs a jar of marshmallow cream now that is nasty unless it's in the shape of fudge and she blops that right down in the middle of that ice cream and starts mixing it in and I tell you my temperature just goes like this now I got mad I got I got very angry

[33:24] I was very kind to her and I didn't say anything to her and I paid for it but I was just seething inside I was so upset because I didn't really want to eat ice cream first but I was okay with eating ice cream and had kind of gotten over that and was fine but we get into the car and I am sort of seething with this anger still and I take the cup and throw it up there on the dashboard up against where the windshield meets everything it gets sort of stuck in there and I'm just frustrated I'm just angry and we we pull out and we're starting to drive off you know Michelle sitting over there she's all quiet eating her ice cream just not saying a word the end of the story is that eventually Michelle says something to me I can't remember I began by God's grace to realize what's going on what happened there what happened there is that

[34:32] I got angry and I'm going to tell you something that may surprise you 99.9% of the time that we're angry it's ungodly wicked anger I would say to you this that if you ever get angry you just might as well go ahead and think to yourself I'm sinning because it's very rare that any of us get angry in a way that's godly but I could not look at my wife and say this is your fault because we should have gone to eat at wing stop I couldn't look at the little lady and say this is your fault because you're not following the recipe or listening to what the customer saying that anger came out of my heart and I'm going to tell you something until you can get to the place where you can say that's me that's my fault you will not defeat sin in your life because one of the things about this is that knowing knowing that sin comes out of our hearts means that we can never say this again you made me mad no one makes you mad husbands wives one of you starts this next week to look at the other one and say you're just making me so angry you stop him and say pastor said no that's on you it doesn't mean that their behavior was fine right because your spouse may sin against you but just because they sin against you does not give you the right to then come back and sin against them we don't defeat sin with sin we defeat sin with the gospel and the judging king is coming and he's going to hold us accountable and we're going to stand before him on the day of judgment we're going to give an account for all that we have done in secret and out in the open and as

[36:49]  Christians if we don't understand where that sin comes from we are never ever ever going to be able to defeat it your sin comes out of your heart and the good news is that Jesus is in the business of changing hearts and you don't have to be locked into that and it doesn't have to be the way you are by his death and resurrection you can be changed admit to him Lord I got a problem please help me that's probably the place where we can rejoice in our king because you my king died for me let's pray