Psalm 21 is where we find our place.
Let's read it together.
To the choir master, a psalm of David.
!
You set a crown of fine gold upon his head.
He asked life of you, and you gave it to him.
Length of days, forever and ever.
His glory is great through your salvation.
Splendor and majesty you bestow on him.
For you make him most blessed forever.
You make him glad with the joy of your presence.
For the king trusts in the Lord.
And through the steadfast love of the Most High,
he shall not be moved.
Your hand will find out all your enemies.
Your right hand will find out those who hate you.
You will make them a blazing oven when you appear.
The Lord will swallow them up in his wrath.
Fire will consume them.
You will destroy their descendants from the earth
and their offspring from among the children of men.
Though they plan evil against you,
though they devise mischief,
they will not succeed.
For you will put them to flight.
You will aim at their faces with your bows.
Be exalted, O Lord, in your strength.
We will sing and praise your power.
Amen.
Well, if we pay attention,
and I think that you do that well,
if we pay attention,
the Psalms add an incredible richness and depth to our worship.
And that's useful for us because so many times in our lives,
our private prayers,
our public praises can remain somewhat generic in their content.
It's not necessarily that we're focused on the wrong things,
but that we often just focus on the same things,
saying the same things,
rehearsing the same things.
We tend to speak of,
generally,
of God's love and grace,
and we should do that.
The Psalms,
they compel us to do something more than that.
They compel us to dig deeper,
below the surface,
to meditate on specific aspects of God's character,
and how they're displayed in His saving work.
Psalm 21 is no exception to that.
A cursory reading might lead you to think,
well, this is just as basic and generic as any of the other Psalms,
but a careful reading,
a meditative reading will prove otherwise.
And that's what we want to do today.
As a companion to Psalm 20,
the Psalm calls for us to follow the king's lead
in rejoicing in and praising the Lord's strength and power.
We have, at the beginning, verses 1 and 2,
and then at the end, verse 13,
functioning like bookends that highlight the theme.
Just set your eyes on it.
I want you to see the correlation of terminology here.
In verse 1,
O Lord, in your strength,
the king rejoices,
and in your salvation,
how greatly he exalts.
Now set your eyes on verse 13 at the end.
Be exalted, O Lord, in your strength.
We will sing and praise your power, he says.
Bookends,
giving us something of a theme to the Psalm.
The beginning, we see God's king rejoicing in God's strength,
and in the end,
all of the king's people are called to join him in that praise.
And then sandwiched in between the two,
in the middle is the meat.
Two specific ways God's strength has been displayed to his people.
First, we see in verses 3 to 7,
it has been displayed in the establishment of the king's throne.
And then in verses 8 to 12,
we find that it is displayed in the destruction of the king's enemies.
Which brings us to an important question.
If the Psalm is so hyper-focused on God's work in a particular individual,
this king,
why is everyone called to join him in this praise at the end?
This is fundamentally about the king.
It's not about everybody else, right?
So why are we brought in at the end?
And of course, the answer is because our life is bound up in the king's life.
His blessings are our blessings.
The defeat of his enemies means the defeat of ours.
Therefore, with the king,
we are called to worship God for his strength in salvation.
And in this way,
a proper meditation on Psalm 21
will help to deepen our worship in a manner that brings honor to the Lord,
that exalts his king,
and that ultimately strengthens our faith.
Now, verses 1 and 2 are functioning as what we would call a bridge here.
It's a literary bridge
connecting the
Psalm, Psalm 21, to the one before it.
Now, we need to acknowledge every Psalm stands on its own, doesn't it?
They function on their own.
However, it's good to remember that they are intentionally arranged.
Context is king when it comes to good Bible study skills.
And in meditating on a specific song,
if we consider its placement in the entire collection of songs,
it will help us better understand and appreciate its meaning.
Think of the Psalms like a modern hymn book.
I know we don't...
Do you teenagers know what those are?
Hymn books?
When I was growing up,
when me and your parents were growing up,
we went to church buildings when we worshiped,
and we had these seats called pews.
And they called them pews because they were so uncomfortable
that when you got up at the end of the service,
you were like,
phew, glad that it's over, right?
It's a dad joke for Father's Day, right?
Come on, give me something.
Here we go.
Thank you.
On the back of those pews were these racks,
and there were these thick books.
Sometimes they were red.
Sometimes they were green.
They were called hymn books.
And what you did is you went into the service.
You sat in your pew.
You grabbed your hymn book and your Bible,
and someone would stand up at the front,
and they would say,
stand with me, please,
and turn to hymn number, whatever.
And they would give the number,
and you'd flip there in your hymn book,
and you would sing the song.
Now, if you dig into those hymn books,
and a lot of people would take them home,
how many of you have a hymn book at your house somewhere?
You ever just flip through it and read through the hymns?
It's such a wonderful devotional practice.
If you're having a bad day,
open up a hymn book, a good one,
a good hymn book,
and just start reading through some of those hymns.
It'll do a lot for you.
You have that.
What do you find when you open up that hymn book?
Each song stands on its own, doesn't it?
Each song, you don't have to sing other songs
in order to understand basically what it's trying to say,
but yet all of those songs are arranged in a particular way.
They are intentionally placed thematically with other songs
so that when we take all of them together,
we can get a fuller understanding of what the theology is
of the songs that we're singing.
The Psalms are functioning the same way.
In the hymn book, David, most likely for a lot of them,
has come through and has arranged them for us.
He's placed them in specific places in a liturgical order
so that when we take Psalm 21,
the first thing that we want to do
is we want to start looking around it to see,
okay, what else is happening here in these other Psalms?
Will that help me understand this one?
And when we get to Psalm 21,
it's essential that we do that
because as we find in verses one and two,
there's this bridge that connects us
directly to Psalm 20.
They are meant to be together
because together they present a continuous story
of God's messianic king.
It covers his suffering and then his salvation.
Then it covers the establishment of his throne
and then the final judgment of his enemies.
Here, David underscores the king's response
to God's salvation,
which was focused on in Psalm 20.
Having been delivered from his suffering,
the king rejoices in the Lord's strength.
He exalts in God's salvation.
This word exalt is such a helpful one.
It refers to a feeling or an expression of elation.
It's joyful triumph.
It sets the tone for the psalm.
It sets the tone for what God's people are to do
when they sing it.
We are to observe God's strength
and how he has worked in our salvation
and then exalt in his great power to save.
Expression of elation, joy, triumph.
That's the tone of the psalm.
And then we're reminded in verse two
that this was the heart's desire
and earnest prayer of the king.
Now this connects us back to Psalm 20 as well.
Just look back at Psalm 20 in verse four.
Part of the prayer,
the blessing that the people were praying
about this king,
may he grant you your heart's desire
and fulfill all your plans.
Verse five,
may the Lord fulfill all your petitions.
That's the prayer that the people are praying for the king.
And now we get to Psalm 21
and immediately David says,
the king now responds to God's salvation.
And he responds by saying,
you have given me my heart's desire.
You fulfilled my petitions.
Now what was it that the king petitioned God to do?
His petitions weren't about material wealth
or earthly power.
Instead, he sought the salvation of his people
through his own suffering and deliverance.
God the Father heard his prayer
and gave him his heart's desire.
And then we get to the end of verse two
and we have that common liturgical term,
that Selah.
What does the Selah cause us to do?
It wants us,
it's instructing us to stop for a second.
It's instructing us to pause
and just consider what's been said.
What is it that David wants us to meditate upon?
Who is this king who rejoices in God's strength
and exalts in God's salvation?
And we must, in our meditation,
realize that this psalm is not about David.
He doesn't sing of himself here.
No, this psalm is about the future Davidic king
and Messiah promised in God's covenant.
The king through whom God would defeat all his enemies
and bring an eternal kingdom that will have no end.
This psalm is about Jesus.
Jesus, the one who leads us in worship of God's strength.
The one who suffered and was raised for our salvation.
Now David and the Israelites,
they can only sing this in anticipation
of what God would do.
That's not the case for us.
We sing and pray the psalm in reflection
on what God has already done.
But I want you to notice the way the language
is given to us here.
So confident is David
and the people who join him in this praise.
So confident are they in God's promise
that they sing of this future Messiah
in the past tense.
Do you see that?
Verse 1.
Oh Lord, in your strength the king rejoices
and in your salvation how greatly he exalts.
You've given him his heart's desire.
You've not withheld the request of his lips.
You've already done it, God.
Except, historically, he had not already done it.
What is this telling us?
Well, at the end of Psalm 20,
David was reminding the people to trust the Lord's promise.
And here he's giving them a song to indicate that trust.
They sing of God's promise as if it's already been fulfilled.
Why then do we so often,
who are more blessed than they,
to know how all the pieces fit together
in a way that they did not know?
Why is it that we so often would sing a song like this
or pray through a psalm like this
with a sense of anxiety
or doubt
or even apathy?
It's instructing us, isn't it?
Now, at the end,
all of God's people are called to join in the king's praise here.
But there's two motivations for worship that are expressed.
First, why should we worship God for his strength?
Let's see what the psalm has to say about it.
First, in the Lord's strength,
the king is established.
In the Lord's strength,
the king is established.
Look at verses 3-7.
For you meet him with rich blessings.
You set a crown of fine gold upon his head.
He asked life of you.
You gave it to him.
Length of days, forever and ever.
His glory is great through your salvation.
Splendor and majesty you bestow on him.
For you make him most blessed forever.
You make him glad
with the joy of your presence.
For the king trusts in the Lord.
And through the steadfast love of the Most High,
he shall not be moved.
Now, again, let's hold Psalm 20 and Psalm 21 together.
How are they functioning together?
When Psalm 20, it's given to the choir master
so that the people would remember and trust God's promises.
Psalm 21 is given to the choir master
to acknowledge that God is mighty to fulfill those promises.
And as we've seen repeatedly throughout the Psalms,
God's covenants with Israel,
particularly his covenant with David,
is the foundation of the song.
And what was the Davidic covenant all about?
It was fundamentally about an eternal king
through whom God would bless his people forever and ever.
2 Samuel 7, verses 12 and 13.
This is part of the covenant God makes.
This is God saying this to David.
When your days are fulfilled
and you lie down with your fathers,
that's important.
We can't forget that.
David died.
He did not live forever.
When you lie down with your fathers,
I will raise up your offspring after you
who shall come from your body
and I will establish his kingdom.
He shall build a house for my name
and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
God's covenant faithfulness
is what anchors this Psalm.
And the allusion to the covenant
is unmistakable in verse 7.
Just set your eyes on it again.
It is through the steadfast love of the Most High.
An oft-repeated reference to God's covenant faithfulness.
It's through that
that the king will be established.
Now, just put it all together in your mind.
What's the covenant?
David, after you,
I'm going to raise up your offspring
and he will be a king unlike any other king.
I'm going to give him a kingdom that lasts forever.
Now, David, in Psalm 20,
tells Israel and leads them to trust that promise.
And now, in Psalm 21,
he says God will fulfill it.
He's powerful to fulfill it.
He will do what?
He will establish his king.
That's what this is about.
The joy of the king and his people,
it rests entirely on their faith in God's character,
his steadfast love,
and in his power to do what he promised he would do.
The king trusts in the Lord,
therefore we should too.
And here again,
faith in God is fundamental to our worship.
Those who trust in his steadfast love
will, with the king,
exult in God's great salvation.
Now, how is God's blessings of the king displayed?
How is it that the establishment of this king
is described in the text?
Let's just walk through it.
He meets him with rich blessings.
Now, that's going to stand in stark contrast
to what will come next in the next section
in God's enemies.
They are not met with rich blessings.
They are met with destruction.
But the king and his people,
oh, they're met with rich blessings.
God places a crown of fine gold upon his head.
That's an image we're meant to see
of kingship, royalty.
In answer to the king's prayer,
God gives him life forever and ever.
Remember the covenant.
It's fulfilled.
He clothes the king in glory,
splendor, and majesty.
He is called the most blessed forever.
And as we understand that term in the scriptures,
we understand that the blessing of the king
overflows into blessing for his people
so that the king and its people
are welcomed into the presence of God,
not for judgment,
but with joy and gladness, peace.
All of this blessing, according to verse 5,
comes through what?
God's salvation.
How was God's salvation described in Psalm 20?
It was described through suffering and resurrection.
The king is exalted to a glorious throne
through his suffering and subsequent glory.
In God's power, the king is thus established.
David, looking ahead in anticipation
to what God will do in the person of Christ,
leads all of God's people to praise and worship
the strength of God to establish his king
and bring his people great salvation.
Now, we know this psalm isn't about David
because David did not receive the blessings
enumerated in the psalm.
These are too great for David.
There is a sense in which his life
foreshadowed his future son,
but the king whose throne is established
in this song is not David.
It is the future Messiah.
It's Jesus.
The one who, after wearing a crown of thorns,
is crowned with glory and eternal life.
The one on whom God has bestowed splendor
and majesty with a name that is above every name.
The one who, according to the writer of Hebrews,
after making purifications for sins,
sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high,
having become as much superior to angels
as the name he has inherited,
is more excellent than theirs.
What's the writer of Hebrews referencing?
The exaltation of the king.
All through the New Testament,
the scriptures speak of the exalted king
who, after suffering for our sins,
is blessed forever by the Father.
Of course, one of our favorites is Philippians 2.
Being found in human form,
Jesus humbled himself
by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Therefore, God has highly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus,
every knee should bow in heaven
and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord
to the glory of God the Father.
What is it that Paul and the writer of Hebrews
is picking up on?
The king.
It's king language.
Through his suffering and resurrection,
God exalts his king.
He places Jesus and bestows on him
a glory that is above the glory
of all other people.
He's our king.
Why are we to praise God's power?
Because in the Lord's strength
and through his saving work,
the throne of King Jesus is established,
and the blessings of King Jesus
will overflow to all who trust in him.
That's why we should join the king
in his praise.
But there's a second part to this.
In the Lord's strength,
the king's enemies are defeated.
In the Lord's strength,
the king's enemies are defeated.
Look at verses 8 to 12.
Your hand will find out all your enemies.
Your right hand will find out those who hate you.
You will make them a blazing oven when you appear.
The Lord will swallow them up in his wrath.
Fire will consume them.
You will destroy their descendants from the earth
and their offspring from among the children of men,
though they plan evil against you.
Though they devise mischief,
they will not succeed,
for you will put them to flight.
You will aim at their faces
with your bows.
In the Lord's strength,
the king's enemies are defeated.
Now there's a noticeable shift in audience
at this point in the psalm.
Notice in verses 3 to 7,
the attention is directed to the Lord himself,
the Lord who establishes his king.
But in verses 8 to 12,
it's directed toward the king.
Now that God has established his king,
he empowers him to rule his kingdom,
defeating all of his enemies.
We're reminded here of the unity that exists
between the Lord and his anointed king,
a oneness of judgment
that we saw first in Psalm 2.
Just flip over a couple of pages to Psalm 2.
I want you to see and remember what it says.
Psalm 2, look at verse 2.
The kings of the earth set themselves,
the rulers take counsel together
against the Lord
and against his anointed,
his anointed king.
Verse 4,
he who sits in the heavens laughs at them.
The Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath
and terrify them in his fury,
saying this,
as for me,
I have set my king on Zion,
my holy hill.
What does he mean?
He looks at his enemies and he says,
my king will take care of you.
Verse 9,
speaking to the king,
the Lord says,
you shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces
like a potter's vessel.
Verse 12,
kiss the son,
he says to the enemies,
lest he be angry
and you perish in the way
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him instead.
And we get to Psalm 21
and what is it that we find?
David's drawing on that same idea.
Now that the Lord has established his king,
he will empower his king
to judge the earth.
Christopher Ashe said,
just as opposition to the Messiah
is opposition to God,
so judgment by the Messiah
is the judgment of God.
There is a oneness
showing forth here
between the Lord
and his anointed.
What is it speaking of?
This final,
decisive day of judgment
is the focus here.
It's not judgment in general.
It's the final judgment
that's in view.
Just as those who trust the Lord
receive eternal life
through his king,
those who set themselves
against the Lord
receive eternal punishment
through the king.
There's an allusion here
to the second coming of Christ.
It's in verse 9.
When he appears,
David says,
the king will consume
all of God's enemies
in the fullness
of God's wrath.
We have this language echoed
in 2 Thessalonians.
Chapter 1, verses 7 and 10.
Paul says,
the Lord Jesus
will be revealed from heaven.
In other words,
when he appears,
he will be revealed from heaven.
with his mighty angels
in a flaming fire
inflicting vengeance
on those who do not know God
and on those who do not obey
the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
They will suffer the punishment
of eternal destruction
away from the presence of the Lord
and from the glory of his might
when he comes on that day.
The parallels there are striking,
aren't they?
Psalm 21,
2 Thessalonians 1,
what are they speaking of?
That final day of judgment.
The king will return.
And when he returns,
he will return
in a consuming fire,
pouring forth vengeance
and the wrath of God
on all who are against God
and do not obey the gospel of Jesus.
And what will their suffering be?
Eternal destruction.
Whereas in the first part of the psalm,
the king and his people
are glad and rejoice
in the presence of God.
In the second part of the psalm,
those who do not belong
to the king by faith
are facing the wrath of God.
They are expelled
from the presence of God,
according to Paul.
Three truths are then expressed
in this section
about Christ's judgment
of his enemies.
First,
we see that the enemies of Christ
will not escape.
They will not escape.
Look at verse 8.
Speaking to the king now,
your hand will find out
all your enemies.
Your right hand will find out
those who hate you.
No matter how hard they try,
the unbelieving will not be able
to hide on the day of God's wrath.
And that's not just a matter
of physical location.
Hiding from the physical presence
of the king
as if they could run into the caves
and cry for the rocks
to fall over them
and hide them from the king,
as the New Testament tells us
they will do.
It won't work.
He'll find them out.
But that's not all this means.
This is also a matter
of the heart.
God's enemies will not be able
to fool him
in the day of judgment.
In the strength of the Lord,
nothing is hidden from his sight,
including the true nature
of your heart.
He will find it out.
No one else may find it out
on the day of judgment.
He will find it out.
That's why the warning
is so striking by Jesus
in the Gospel of Luke.
Many will say to me on that day,
on that final day,
Lord, Lord,
have we not done many wonderful things
in your name?
And I will say to them,
depart from me,
you workers of iniquity.
I never knew you.
They will not escape,
neither physically
nor spiritually.
He knows your heart.
Don't think you can fool him.
You can't.
Second,
they will not survive.
They will not survive.
Verse 10,
you will destroy
their descendants
from the earth
and their offspring
from among the children of men.
This is not so much
a reference to physical children,
but to those
who share their spiritual identity
as enemies of the king,
the unbelieving,
the nations and the kings
of Psalm 2
that set themselves
in rebellion against God
and his anointed
and against his gospel.
No one will slip through the cracks,
in other words.
No one will be forgotten
in the judgment,
in the strength of the Lord.
Third,
all unbelievers
will be destroyed.
Third,
they will not succeed.
They will not succeed.
Verses 11 and 12,
though they plan evil against you,
though they devise mischief,
they will not succeed.
Instead,
you will put them to flight.
You will aim at their faces
with your bows.
Here we're reminded
that God's enemies
are truly guilty.
They plan evil.
They devise mischief.
What does that look like?
Sometimes it's blatant
and obvious.
Other times,
it really just boils down
to a rejection of God
and his gospel.
They are set against God
and his king,
caught in their own
foolish rebellion.
And even as this deception
is exposed to them
and they understand
the reality of the judgment
and their guilt before God,
we know what they will do
is harden their hearts
even further
and they will rage
against the king.
But they will not succeed
in the strength of the Lord.
Jesus will win victory
over every enemy.
Now this section,
it's sobering,
serves as a warning
for everyone to examine
their hearts
to see if they are
on the Lord's side.
And it would be unfaithful
for us not to take a moment
and just pause
and consider that question.
Are you on the Lord's side?
Do you belong to the king
or are you set against him?
But then we must remember
that these statements
are made in the context
of celebration.
What is the tone
that was set for us
in verse 1?
Joy,
exaltation,
the expression of elation.
And that includes
this section.
What is it calling us to do?
With King Jesus,
all of his people
are being called
to rejoice in the fact
that God will be victorious
over every enemy.
Which on one hand
is difficult for us to do
because we recognize
that some of those enemies
are people we love.
We're reminded even then
is the heart of God.
He does not delight
in the destruction
of the wicked
even though it is right.
And yet,
we can still rejoice
that God is victorious.
That none of our enemies
or Jesus' enemies
will remain.
His kingdom
will be a perfect kingdom.
No rebellion.
No sin.
No hardness of heart.
all joy
and joy
in the strength
of the Lord
who through his king
defeats all his enemies.
Then we get to the final verse.
It wraps all up for us
in 13.
Be exalted,
O Lord,
in your strength.
We now are included.
First person plural.
We will sing
and praise
your power.
Isn't that what the psalm
is teaching us to do?
All who follow Jesus
are called to join him
in his praise.
With our king,
we rejoice
in God's strength
to fulfill his promises
and we exult
in the salvation
of Christ
which he has won
for his people.
for all
who will trust
in him
and therefore
by faith
let us sing
and praise
the glorious power
of our mighty God
for the Lord
himself
is our salvation.