All right, we're going to continue looking at summer Psalms, prayers and songs for life out of the book in the middle of the Bible, the book of Psalms. And today we're going to look at Psalm 2. We're going to look at what it teaches about the wisdom of fear and trembling. Psalm 2. is one of the places in the book of Psalms where it talks about God laughing. And it reminds me of a saying that Woody Allen said once. He said, do you want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans. And that's really kind of the idea that's behind Psalm 2 in part. Psalm 2 is said at the beginning of the book of Psalms with Psalm 1, they kind of work together as the introduction to the whole book. Many of the themes that you find in Psalm 1 and also in Psalm 2, you'll find repeated in various ways through the rest of the book of Psalms. Psalm 2 is different though, it's about the king over Judah, the king that reigned in Jerusalem. From what we can tell, most likely during the period of the monarchy, this psalm functioned as a way to inaugurate the new king. When a new king would come to the throne, this psalm would be used in some way. We're not sure exactly how, but you can see as you read through the psalm, it talks about the Messiah. or the way it's translated into English, the anointed, the anointed one. And it was a reference to the fact that when somebody became king, they would take a horn of oil and they would pour it over that person's head as a way to symbolize that God's spirit would be with this person and God would be guiding this person as they served as the king over the whole nation. And as we'll see, it makes references to this person as the king and becoming the king that day, becoming the son of God that day. That today, this day, you become the son of God. Not becoming somehow a divine being, but becoming God's representative, God's person. And to us, it's important because, as we'll talk about later, we see that fulfilled in Jesus, But as far as functioning as an opening to the book, Psalm 1 is focused on the individual, on the person, and how that individual can find wisdom, and the way that individual finds wisdom is delighting in the words of the law, delighting in, as we sang, the ancient words, letting those saturate our person. But Psalm 2 is about us as a people. about corporate wisdom, about how we should live under God's rule, how we should seek His blessing and live under that blessing. And so, I want to read the text, Psalm 2. It says, Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against His anointed." So against the new king, the nations are plotting. They are saying, let us break their chains and throw off their shackles. The one enthroned in heaven laughs. I told you God laughs in this. The Lord scoffs at them. He rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain. I will proclaim the Lord's decree. He said to me, you are my son. Today, I have become your father. Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will break them with a rod of iron. You will dash them to pieces like pottery. Therefore, you kings, be wise. Be warned, you rulers of the earth. serve the Lord with fear and celebrate his rule with trembling kiss his son or he will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction for his wrath can flare up in a moment blessed are all who take refuge in him so in this text And there's 12 verses and they kind of function as four sets of three as you read through the text. And so the first part of the text talks about the rage of the nations. You can see this even today when there's a regime change, when there is the death of some leader, if it's a monarchy or a dictatorship. There's all these people trying to fill that vacuum that suddenly occurs. Or even in our own democracy, whenever there's a new election of some new leader, often some of the other nations that are at odds with us will try to test this new person to figure out, what's this new leader like? And that's what the verses are talking about, is as this new king is installed, the nations are conspiring, the people are plotting, they are trying to figure out, who is this king? What is he going to be like? It's interesting, I told you that these two Psalms kind of function together and one of the ways they function together is Psalm 1 had this emphasis that if you delight in the Lord you'll become like a tree. And we talked about how that tree was by rivers of water and it had fruit. It's the image in Genesis 2 of the tree of life. that you will become like what God intended. If you meditate in his word, you'll become a tree of life imparting life to others. But here, what we see with the nations raging and pulling on their chains and fighting is that other tree. What happened in Genesis 3, when they ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, how they were rebelling, how they were saying, we know better what is right, we're not going to go God's way, we're going our own way. You see this idea of how you have the regime change and the testing? You see that even in the life of Jesus, when Jesus gets to Jerusalem the last week of his life, he's questioned what authority he has to do some of the things he's doing and he tells a parable about tenants who were hired out by the owner of the land to work, and whenever it was time for the crops, for the fruit to be given, the owner would send servants to ask for the fruit, but they kept getting run off or killed or chased away. And there was a statement, finally, I'll send my son. Surely they'll respect my son. But in the story, the tenants, when they saw the sun coming, they thought it was regime change. Here comes the heir. Let's kill him. And this will be ours then. And that's exactly what these people are plotting. They're wanting to throw off the rule of God. Notice in Verse 2 and then again in verse 10, they're referred to as kings of this earth. They're here below. Their focus is below, not on God. And the question becomes, are we like these people? It's so easy for us to read not only the Psalms, but all the Bible, and whoever the hero is, that's us. We're right there. But if you're really gonna meditate and delight on the instruction of the law, you have to read every character and say, what does it feel like if I'm this person? Are there times where I'm the nation's raging? Are there times where I'm not supporting the kingdom of heaven but kingdoms of this earth? Are there times when I'm way more focused on which person's going to get into office and demonizing any other person? So much so that I corrupt the witness that I'm called to, to show people love, compassion, caring, or do we do like these people and rage? I mean, it's so easy for us to turn on the TV and see maybe an outbreak of riots at some of the protests, or to see the autonomous zone in Washington state, and say, look at that. Look how the nations are raging. But do we look at our own posts that we put sometimes? Do we think about how we may not be witnesses to the one in heaven, but instead creating some of this strife here on earth. So the raging of the nations, the second thing that's in this passage is the rebuke of heaven. The kings of the earth are a joke to the one in heaven. They're squabbling, they're fighting, and it talks about that they are standing up, getting ready to do something. Well, it says God is enthroned. He sits there. They're angry, and he's laughing. He's laughing at them, but he's also, I'm sure, sad about what they're doing. He scoffs at their plans, it says. And again, there's this connection to Psalm 1, because the wicked, remember how they were walking and they were standing and eventually they start sitting and scoffing and laughing at the righteous? God is laughing at the wicked right now, because he is enthroned in heaven. And he says to them, there's only one king that's a king for me, the king of heaven. He is enthroned in Zion. Now at the time this originally was written, it was political rhetoric. I mean, it was whoever the king was, and they had some really bad kings in Jerusalem. So, we've got to keep that in mind. This was the ideal, this was the hope. And we don't know what it was like, what this psalm was like back when it was written for the monarchy. What we have here, the collection we finally have is after the monarchy's gone. And by the time of that, their hope for the one that's installed in Zion, their hope is for Messiah. Their hope is for a coming king, someone that will come that we believe was Jesus. We know it's Jesus or else we wouldn't be here. And they are, that's the one that God has installed, the rightful king. It reminds me at the end of David's life, there's a story that as David is near death, one of his sons starts the plot to take over the kingdom. His name was Adonijah and he gets with some of David's advisors and they're all having this meeting and they're planning and word leaks out to David that the son's getting ready to revolt. And so David calls in his son Solomon and has him anointed, puts him in royal clothes, puts him on David's mule and has him paraded around shouting, long live King Solomon, the rightful king. Not these other kings that are plotting, but the rightful king. Solomon came to power that way in the midst of a revolt. It reminds me of David too. David, anointed by God to replace Saul. David didn't say, I'm the king. I've got the right to do whatever I want. David was faithful to that other king, Saul, even though he knew God had said, Saul's no longer king. David was faithful to him. David protected him. David fought wars for him behind his back because he was looking out for the people more than his own rights. And when Saul died, then David stepped forward to become the king. And we're all familiar with the Bathsheba story, but that really affected David the rest of his life. David wrestled with, am I still the person that can be the king, that should be the king? So much so that one of his other sons led a revolt, Absalom. And when that revolt started, David didn't say, I'm the king. I've got the right to be here. I'm going to villainize you, and I'm going to take you out. David instead took his family, took his key leaders, and they went into exile. They abandoned Jerusalem. David may have thought, maybe this is God's punishment on me. He wasn't sure. He didn't say, I know everything. He was not sure. He went into exile, and eventually Absalom is killed by some of David's men against David's orders, and David's restored to his throne. But it reminds me of what it says about Jesus in Philippians. He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped and held on to, but made himself a servant. Surrendering even to death on a cross. One of the questions that we need to ask ourselves is, are we on God's side? Are we seeking God's plan or are we making our own plans and listening to the nations around us? The third thing relates to what we're already talking about, the reign of the sun. The reign of the sun, you see it in verse 7, today you have become my son, I have become your father. Ask me, I'll give you the nations as your inheritance, the ends of the earth, your possession. This is based on a promise God made to David in 2 Samuel 7. David wanted to build a temple and God said, no, let me build a house for you. Let me create a dynasty for you that will last forever. And he says, he will be my son, I will be his father. They began to call the kings of Israel, just like all the other kings around them, the son of God. I mean, if you got Roman coins at the time of Jesus, what you'd see on those coins was Caesar, Augustus, son of God. Everybody called themselves the son of God, but everybody else, the son of God was, I'm somehow divine. I've got the right to do whatever I want. The kings of Israel said, God is king. I'm his son representing him. But I am an adopted one. Now for Jesus, for us that hope in the coming monarchy, Jesus is the Son in a very different way. He is the Son. He is God Himself come to earth. But this Psalm, Psalm 2, is one of the most quoted in the New Testament. And you see it at the baptism of Jesus, you see it again at the transfiguration, this particular passage. You're my son. This is my son. This promise made that he is the son. At the end of Matthew's Gospel, when Jesus is commissioning the people, he says, go and make disciples of all the nations. Why? Because, ask me, I will make the nations your inheritance. Jesus is in the process of inheriting all the nations, just as he's been promised here in Psalm 2. because he is the rightful king. At the time I mentioned it earlier, there was already a guy that said he was son of God, the Caesar over the Roman Empire. Within a few centuries though, this little movement that Jesus started had become so influential that it toppled Rome. They didn't topple Rome by taking up swords and fighting and destroying and using rods of iron like it talks about in verse 9. Instead, what it, what it, what they did was they went out and they loved people. And when babies were abandoned out to the elements because it was the wrong sex, they would take that child in and raise it as their own. When they saw sick people, they didn't flee from them, but they went and helped them. And over several centuries, Rome became a Christian nation. Ask me and I will make The nation's your inheritance. I've seen some really sad things spray-painted on some statues of Jesus lately in some of the riots, things like crucify him again. And some of us see that and we're so outraged, we're so upset, but you know, with my own students who think they know what the Bible says about Jesus, and then we start teaching New Testament, they start going, wow, I haven't really met many people that aren't attracted to him. They may not believe he's son of God, they may not believe he's divine, but they're attracted to who he is and where he lives. So why are they spray painting crucify him again on statues? Because they don't read the story All they've read about, all they've experienced is how we live. Maybe we haven't been the witnesses we need to be. Maybe they're seeing hate in us instead of love. Maybe we need to examine ourselves and say, is the sun fully raining over me? Or have I gotten involved in the politics of nations and their rage. Finally, in the passage, it talks about the refuge of the broken. The refuge of the broken, they're warned in verse 10, you kings be wise. Serve the Lord, serve God. They're not told to serve the king, they're told to serve God. Because if they serve God, then they'll serve the king back in the ancient world. Serve the Lord with what? With fear. Celebrate His rule with trembling. Fear and trembling we usually think of as bad. But here it's something good. It's realizing it's not all about you. It's not about your favorite king. It's not about the rage and the fighting. It's about Him. and loving Him and trusting Him and following Him. Kiss the Son, it says. You know, when Jesus entered into Jerusalem that last week of His life, Luke talks about that as Jesus' eyes looked up toward Jerusalem, as He's in the valley below it, getting ready to ride up into Jerusalem, that He began to weep. He said, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I have longed to gather you under my wings like a hen gathers its chicks, but you wouldn't let me. Look at the way this psalm ends. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him, who take refuge under His wings, who take refuge in the rule of the Son. I've mentioned before, this passage is quoted more than any other passage in the Old Testament. I've referenced some of those already. But there are other places that you can find it. Psalm 2 is one of the most quoted Psalms. The other is Psalm 110, both about Jesus becoming King and about what His rule is like. Some of them you just read right in passing without even realizing sometimes what's being said, like in 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians, toward the very beginning of the book, there's a place where Paul says, when I came and I preached to you, I wanted to know only Christ and Him as the crucified one. And so I came to you with fear and trembling. He said, because I knew of wisdom, because the Corinthians were bragging, we've got wisdom, we know what's right. He said, I had wisdom, but it's not the wisdom of this age. You see, the kings of the world, Paul says, had the wisdom of this age, but if they knew the true wisdom, they wouldn't have crucified Jesus. That fear and trembling is what was the secret wisdom to realize that there's only one God. And that we don't know everything about him. We don't always know we're following his way. And so we need to always be questioning and asking and searching, meditating on the scripture to say, am I still on the path that you want me to be on? Or have I started to go a different way? who is the Son of God says an amazing thing right in the middle of the Beatitudes. At one point suddenly he says, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. Now most of our translations don't translate it that way. We want to be politically correct for the ladies because you can't be a son of God if you're a woman. But he uses the same phrase for his followers. So we become sons of God, we become daughters of God. Even though he's the king, Jesus. Remember what I said about the kings of Israel, that they were the representatives here on earth? We're called to that same vocation. We're called to represent Jesus here on earth. Paul says the same thing. He talks about us becoming adopted alongside the Son, and so we are co-heirs with Christ. We're to be kings and queens, but in the way Christ was. Not demanding service from others, but serving others and caring for others. That's what we're called to do. And so, one last place I want to show you Psalm 2 plays into the New Testament. When Paul and John were called in front of the Sanhedrin, they were told no longer to speak in the name of Jesus and they were released by the Sanhedrin and they went back to the church and they began to pray with the church. This is part of the prayer that they prayed in Acts chapter 4. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David. Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against His anointed one. Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed. You see how Psalm 2 is all through this? They did what your power and your will had previously decided beforehand should happen Now, Lord, consider their threats, because they're threatening them now. Jesus has already been crucified, but raised back to life, now seated at the right hand of the Father. They're now his representatives in the world. Consider their threats against us, and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. They don't say, God, give us the rod of iron so we can smash their teeth in. Give us the power to speak the name of Jesus with boldness. Lord, stretch out your hand, not to slay the wicked. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant, Jesus. After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. Maybe the whole city was trembling, as we are called to do, to fear the Lord and to serve Him with trembling. But the place they're meeting was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the Word of God boldly. Jesus led a different kind of revolution. It's a revolution of love, and we're called to still be part of it. Going out, overthrowing injustice where we find it, but in the name of love. And because of a better way, because of the way of King Jesus, we're called to be his witnesses. not to be beholden to any party or leader or political philosophy or trendy new thing that might come along. If we do that, we'll understand the wisdom of fear and trembling, of bowing down. You remember the beginning of the passage where They're fighting against the chain saying let's break these chains. I'm reminded of what Paul said. I am free. Yet I've made myself a slave to everyone so that in all ways. Some might be saved. Let's pray. Father, we come to you, Lord, and we ask you to be with us, Lord, to help us reflect on our lives. Thank you, Lord, when we follow your Son and we show love and compassion to others. And forgive us, Lord, when from time to time we begin to eat from that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and begin to think of ourselves, and begin to think of our tribe, and begin to create divisions and destruction, for there is only one king. And you've called him to call out a people from every tribe, and every tongue, and every people, and every nation. Lord, help us to be your witnesses in this world. To bring a revolution of love. Help us to bow before you in fear and trembling. And to kiss your Son. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So, as we sing, as we stand and sing, If you have a decision you want to make, you can text that, or you can, if you're watching at home, you can text any decisions you might have made.