And Father, as we come to your word today, we thank you that your word is your power. that it accomplishes your purposes in our lives, instructing us, convicting us, transforming us as we see your thoughts, as we see your word. And we are confronted by these things sometimes. So Lord, we pray that you would give us a spirit of humility and obedience today as we come to your word, that we may see the greatness and the glory of Christ and our desperate need for him. We pray that he would be glorified during this time and that you would give us understanding in order that we may be edified by the teaching of your word. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Well, if you have your Bibles with you, it is the first Sunday of the month, so please turn to Psalm 21. We'll be looking at Psalm 21 today, which we do every first Sunday of the month. We look at a Psalm. For many of us who really enjoy movies, who love movies, we always have a great amount of anticipation whenever Hollywood announces that there's going to be some kind of sequel. And if you love movies, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I mean, the way it works is you love the first story so much that you can't wait to see what happened in the aftermath, what happened after that. And of course, Hollywood is always more than happy to oblige and to capitalize on an opportunity to give fans what they want. But the idea of sequels didn't start with Hollywood. In fact, before Hollywood was making sequels, before authors were writing sequels for their books, David wrote a sequel. David wrote a follow-up to what he had written in Psalm 20. So today we're gonna be continuing in our study of the Psalms, which we study on the first Sunday of each month. And the Psalm that we'll be looking at today is the Psalm that essentially serves as the sequel to Psalm 20, which we looked at last month. We saw that Psalm 20 was a prayer for the king. Ultimately, though, it wasn't just any king. Ultimately, it was a prayer for the coming Messiah, the Lord Jesus, to be victorious. And we saw that some of the very specific petitions and prayers that we find in Psalm 20 are affirmed as having been answered in Psalm 21. So with that in mind, you might say that these two Psalms, you know, Psalm 20 was a prayer that God would save the king, that he would grant him victory against his enemies, while Psalm 21 is the sequel. It's a prayer of thanksgiving because God did grant the king victory. Now, God did grant David victory on the battlefield on multiple occasions, but we saw in Psalm 20 that David would have been included among those who were praying, praying for a king other than himself. So Psalm 21 is very similar. It's written by David, but as you go through it, it becomes abundantly clear that he's writing about a king other than himself. Indeed, he wrote this about a king who was yet to come through his line in accordance with what we would refer to as the Davidic covenant. That is the covenant that God made with David in which God promised that a king whose kingdom would never end would come through David's line. And of course, that is what we would refer to as a messianic promise. When I say messianic, of course, that means it's a promise referring to the Messiah, because only God himself could possibly, could even possibly have a kingdom with no end. Interestingly enough, even the Jews of Jesus's time realized that this Psalm, Psalm 21, was written about the Messiah. In both the Targum and the Talmud, the word King, which we'll see in verse one when we get started here in just a moment, it wasn't translated in those two documents as just King. Instead, it was translated as King Messiah. which indicates that they had this expectation that Psalm 21 was about the Messiah. They had an expectation that the Messiah would be the one whose life fit what we see in this Psalm. It wasn't until 1100 years later when a rabbi finally suggested that it simply be translated as King since King Messiah confirmed everything that the Christians had been saying for 1100 years. So that was when it changed back to king. David knew that whenever he won on the battlefield, whenever he achieved victory over his enemies, it wasn't his strength, it wasn't his skill, it was entirely God's doing. And so he knew that if that was the case with him, as somebody who was a great warrior, he knew that when his descendant, whose kingdom would never end, achieved victory, it too would be entirely God's doing. John Calvin said this of Psalm 21. He said, quote, That's a very good summary of what this psalm is about. The point of this psalm is that God's victory is Christ's victory and that Christ's victory is the victory of his people. He shares his victory with his people so his victory is our victory. So as we begin this psalm, we should see that it's David speaking, he's thanking God for granting him victory, and yet it is also very easy to see how this fits Jesus. We can imagine Jesus speaking, we can imagine Jesus praying this specific prayer to the Father after he was resurrected from the dead in victory. So let's start by looking at verses one and two of Psalm 21. It starts by saying, for the choir director, a Psalm of David, a reminder that this is a song that was sung. And it says, O Lord, in your strength the king will be glad, and in your salvation how greatly he will rejoice. You have given him his heart's desire, and you have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah. Now, when David gives thanks to God, he very well, I'd say he probably did so privately most of the time. I can't imagine that he wouldn't have, in fact. That's where everybody's devotional life starts, privately, with our private thoughts, our personal prayers to God. And with David having the title of being a man after God's own heart, we can be certain that he did this privately. We can be certain that he thanked and praised God privately for every victory that God granted him. And yet we are equally certain that David didn't just keep his praises and his prayers and his petitions just to himself. His thanksgiving. He didn't just keep it inward. He let it go. He let it be known. He wrote out these songs, these poems, oftentimes, so that the blessings that he received personally would be shared among and would benefit all of God's people throughout all of the ages. When a man is victorious in battle, regardless of what kind of battle that would be, his emotions tend to ride very, very high. His pride is likely to be shooting through the roof as testosterone and endorphins are surging through his body. He feels young and he feels strong and he feels able and capable and self-sufficient. But not David. Not David. David was humble in victory because he recognized that it wasn't his own doing. He recognized that it wasn't because he was smarter than everybody else. He recognized that it wasn't because he was stronger or faster or better in any way than anyone else. Rather, it wasn't his own strength that won the battle. He realized that it was God's strength that won the battle. So verse 2 tells us why the king rejoiced. And it's because God had granted him his heart's desire and didn't withhold the request of his lips. Now this was a very specific prayer that was offered back in Psalm 20, if you remember. The people prayed for the king in verse 4 of Psalm 20. May he grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your counsel. And if you remember, one of the things that we looked at is how dangerous it is to wish that God would give somebody the desires of their heart, and how, in fact, if we're wise, we actually ask God not to give us the desires of our heart. So this was an indication, another indication, that this is the Messiah. This is David's descendant, the Messiah, that he was referring to, that he was writing about. So you remember the way that this ultimately applied, not to David, but to Jesus, whose heart's desire was pure. And only his heart's desire was pure. And of course his desire, the desire of his heart, was to do the will of the Father. And of course, that desire was fulfilled. Never once did Jesus stray from the will of the Father. It was the Father's will to crush the Son, as the Son took upon Himself the sins of His people, and yet it was also the Father's will that the Son, though He should die, would not remain dead, rather that He would be raised from the grave, and that He would crush the head of the serpent. Now you'll notice if you look down at verse 13, that the King's joy, that Christ's joy, is also our joy. Look at verse 13 with me. In verse 13, we see that it switches from just the King to we, to plural, first person plural. It says, be exalted, O Lord, in your strength. We will sing and praise your power. So the King's victory is our victory. So when God granted Christ victory, God granted victory to all who are by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ. He is in us. We are in Him. Our lives belong to Him. They are entirely in Him. And He is what we would call our federal head. That's a word that you wanna remember, a term that you wanna remember, federal head. And so when he has victory, when our federal head has victory, we have victory. Just like remember last month, we talked about how if the king loses in battle, the whole country loses, right? That's a picture of federal headship. And likewise, if the king has victory in battle, the victory belongs to the country, the people, right? And so thus, not only is Christ's victory our victory, but His joy is our joy. And His thanksgiving is our thanksgiving. See, when Adam sinned, once again, he represented an entire group of people. He actually represented the entire human race. And so his guilt, his shame, was imputed, was transferred, was credited toward all of his offspring. His fallen nature, was their fallen nature. That's why Romans 5.18 starts out by saying, so then as through one transgression, there resulted condemnation to all men, because Adam is a federal head. In our day and age, it's not uncommon for people to see that as being unjust. That if Adam should sin, that all should be guilty of sin. But we're talking about God here, and God is never unjust at all. There is no injustice with God. Adam's sin resulted in the just condemnation of every one of his offspring. But, That's not the end of the story. Because Adam wasn't the only federal head. The other federal head is Christ. The true and better Adam. So Romans 5.18 continues with Paul saying, Now, Before you let that sink in too deep, there's something that's very important to notice here, which explains the reason that Paul would clarify in the next verse, verse 19, which we're gonna get to in just a second here. The thing that we should notice is that while all were condemned in Adam's sin, not all people are justified. And the Bible attests to that, that not everybody is justified, that hell is an empty. Hell isn't empty. There are people who die in their unbelief. So, you know, people reject the free offer of salvation all the time. And the Bible clearly supports that notion. But Paul clarifies in the following verse, verse 19, writing this, he says, for as through the one man's disobedience, he's talking about Adam, right? He's talking about Adam. For as through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, He continues saying, even so through the obedience of the one, speaking of Jesus now, even so through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous. So what we see is that these verses are kind of parallel to one another and that all men in verse 18 is parallel with the many in verse 19. So see, when we understand how this works, how this thing called federal headship works, we see that this really makes, boils down the human race into two groups of people, two races of people. And that is those who are in Adam and those who are in Christ. There are only two federal heads. And that's it. That's them. Christ or Adam. For those who are in Christ, His victory is our victory. His joy is our joy. Now starting in v. 3, as we continue, we see a declaration. We see kind of an underscoring or an emphasis on the king's victory and the way that God poured out His blessings on our Lord and King, Christ Jesus. Let's look at v. 3. David says, for you meet him with the blessings of good things. You set a crown of fine gold on his head. The blessings of good things that God pours out upon the king are abundant. The idea here is not that God was less than generous, not that he just gave him a few blessings, one or two maybe. The idea here is that God is answering above and beyond what even the king had hoped or prayed for, blessing him with exceedingly more than the king had requested or expected. Now, the Hebrew word that's used here to refer to the crown is not the word that refers to a royal crown. In Greek, there are two words that can be translated as crown. The first is Stephanos, and that refers to a wreath. That's the award that was given at the conclusion of the Olympics, the Greek Olympics, to designate who won, to designate the champion. to designate the victor. It's given as a means of acknowledging that the individual is the winner. He's faster, he's stronger, he's better, he's more skilled than all of his opponents. It's the word that Matthew also used, by the way, of the crown of thorns that was placed on Christ as he was crucified. The second Greek word that can be translated crown is diadem. And that's the word that's used to describe the crown of a king, or used to refer to the crown of a king. It represents authority. It represents power. When the psalmist writes, you set a crown of fine gold on his head, of course, this is in Hebrew, but he's got both of those concepts in mind. The king is both the one who has all authority. The king is the one who reigns in power. but the king is also the one who is the victor. So it's both of these things in the Hebrew word here. The point that the psalmist wants us to consider and to celebrate is that God has not only granted the king victory, but God has publicly honored and publicly identified and publicly glorified the king as the victor. The crown is a symbol of victory. It's a symbol of honor. It's a symbol of glory. It's a sign of approval. And of course, all of these things in one sense can be said about David, but in a much fuller sense, in the fullest sense, they can be said of Christ Jesus, who is not just the King, but is indeed the King of kings. See, the father was always pleased with Jesus. The father approved of Jesus. Twice in Matthew's gospel account, the father declares as much verbally from the heavens. You remember, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up on the Mount of Transfiguration. And while they're up there, they hear a voice from a cloud saying this. He says, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. Listen to Him. Friends, that is the message of the New Testament. Right? The message of the New Testament is that Christ is not only sovereign, it's not only that He has all authority and that all authority belongs to Him, but it's also that He is victorious. So, therefore, in light of these truths, listen to Him. Listen to Him. Obey Him. And above all, believe Him. Believe Him. Jesus reigns, and indeed He is now reigning from Heaven's throne over His kingdom. And His position is not one that was granted Him by man. He didn't get there by popular vote, he got there by God's decree. God set the crown upon his head. God exalted his only son who was raised from the dead, granted victory over death, and who ascended into heaven where he's now reigning from the Father's right hand over his kingdom. How did God honor Christ? David lists three ways. in the verses that follow. The first one is with everlasting life. Look at verse four with me. David says, he asked life of you. You gave it to him, length of days forever and ever. Now, when you start reading that verse, it might sound like this could apply to David until you get to the second half of the verse. See, David's days were numbered. Just like yours and mine, David's days on this side of glory were numbered. There's only one king, the king of kings, whose length of days is forever and ever, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And David knew that this would be true of Christ because God had promised David, his descendant, of his descendant, he said, I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. That could only apply to God himself. because only God's days are forever and ever. So it's a messianic promise. See, earthly kings only have a very, very temporary reign. Praise the Lord, right? But the reign of Christ is everlasting. Praise the Lord 100 times, a million times. Even though he was murdered by sinners on Calvary, he was raised on the third day victorious, victorious over sin, victorious over death. The angel who visited Mary, think about what he said to her. The angel who visited her to tell her that she would give birth to the Messiah told her this in Luke 1.33. He said, he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and his kingdom will have no end. Paul tells us in Romans 6, 9, that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again. Death no longer is master over him. So by raising Christ from the dead, God has granted length of days forever and ever to him. And thus we know, thus we are assured that His kingdom, because He has no end, because His length of days never has an end, His kingdom also has no end. He will always, always, for all of eternity, be King. His throne is established forever, and He will reign in glory for all of eternity. That's the first blessing that we see in verse four. The second blessing that God gave Christ, the Messiah, was glory. Look at verse five with me. It says, his glory is great through your salvation. Splendor and majesty you place upon him. Now, what is glory? Might be a thing that seems kind of abstract, but one commentator notes this. He says that glory is, quote, that asset which makes people or individuals or even objects impressive, end quote. Glory, in other words, carries the idea of being very important, of having an abundance of majesty, of beauty, of dignity. So how did God bestow this glory upon Christ? through his victory. It's interesting to note, the Hebrew word here that gets translated salvation is the same word that was translated victory back in Psalm 20 verse five. But do you know what that word is? Do you know what the Hebrew word is that gets translated as victory or salvation? That word is Yeshua, Yeshua. And of course, for those of you who know, That's very similar to the root of Jesus' Hebrew name. So God has demonstrated the majesty, the beauty, the dignity of Christ in glory by raising Him from the dead. He's made Christ's glory. clear for all to see. His glory is seen wherever, wherever the gospel message is proclaimed, and sinners are called by God into Christ's service. Because of His suffering on the cross, and because of His resurrection from the dead, Jesus is more glorious than He would have been if He had lived His life in complete peace and without hardship or persecution. His life is more glorious because of the difficulties He endured and God delivered Him from. Why is that so? Because in His suffering and in His death, Jesus displayed His unwavering commitment to the Father's will, His unwavering obedience to the will of the Father. In His suffering, In his death and in his resurrection, the power and the glory of God are revealed. I mean, consider what Paul said to the Philippians of Christ. He said in chapter two, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted him. and bestowed on him the name which is above every name. So in his suffering, Christ's glory was magnified. In his death, in his suffering, in his resurrection, Christ's glory was magnified. And friends, we need to understand that the same principle works for us. The same principle applies to you and the same principle applies to me. Why does God allow us? Why does God allow his own children to suffer or to go through hardships? or to endure suffering. Why does God allow these things in the lives of his children? You might narrow it down to just two purposes ultimately. The first one is to remind us of our own weakness, to demonstrate his power, his strength through us is the second one. God said to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. And Paul's response to that was to say, with all confidence, he says, most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. So what's the point of letting us go through trials and hardships? To remind us of how weak we are. And so the strength, the power, the glory of God will be demonstrated in our lives. See, facing hardships and trials, they have a way of stripping us of every sense, every notion that what I have is all I need. They have a way of stripping us of this idea that I am sufficient. that we are sufficient, that we don't need anything other than ourselves. What could be a greater blessing than to be reminded, indeed confronted with the reality of our frailty, of our weakness? and yet also being reminded of the power of God working in us and working in every circumstance we face. Whether it's painful circumstances or pleasurable circumstances, he's working in every circumstance to conform us to Christ's image. And that involves remembering how weak we are, how insufficient we are, and how powerful, and how glorious, and how good God is. If Christ had to suffer, and he did, Why shouldn't we expect to suffer? Christ faced hardships. How can we think that we're above facing hardships ourselves? Hardships and trials, this is what we need to remember, friends. Hardships and trials are not proof, they're not evidence, they're not a sign of God abandoning us. In fact, they are not His punishment upon us. I was recently speaking to somebody who's very dear to me, who was in the hospital, who was wondering, am I here because God is angry with me? No. No, God isn't punishing you in your trials and in your hardships. Trials and hardships are actually evidence of His great love for us because they teach us the value of obedience. They keep us humble and they demonstrate the saving power of God. So first, God blessed the Messiah with everlasting days. Secondly, he blessed the Messiah with glory. And third, what we're gonna see in verse six is that God blessed the king with gladness in God's presence. Look at verse six with me. Verse six says, for you make him most blessed forever. You make him joyful with gladness in your presence. Take just a moment to think about who is and who isn't blessed at the idea of being in God's presence. Think about who is, think also about who is not. See, not everyone would find gladness in God's presence. In fact, most people would not. By nature, that's why man suppresses the truth about God. Maybe that means denying God altogether, denying His existence, denying His reality. Maybe it means just denying who He is and imagining God to be something that we want Him to be, someone who is more like us, thinking the way that we think, loving the things that we love and hating the things that we hate. By nature, man finds no gladness being in the presence of God. The idea terrifies him. Because God is holy and man by nature is not. But Jesus, the King of Kings would find gladness in God's presence and Jesus does. Fallen man is capable of desiring all kinds of things. Fallen man is even capable of desiring the blessings of God. If you think about it, lost people desire to be forgiven. Lost people are capable of saying the sinner's prayer and yet remaining lost. They're capable of praying to God for forgiveness. They might even pray for God to protect them when they're afraid. But while they pray for these blessings of God, and desire these blessings of God, they do not desire God. As we've seen in our study of John, man's nature is to love the gifts and rebel against and reject the gift giver. But when God saves a person, When the heart of stone that we have by nature is replaced with the heart of living flesh, the desires of that individual begin to change. When the same person was incapable of desiring before, God enables him to desire. And so a person goes from desiring the gifts and yet rejecting the giver of gifts to being a person whose greatest desire, whose greatest pursuit, whose greatest treasure is not the gifts, but is the gift giver himself. Let me ask you this today, friends. If you could die and go to heaven only to find out that God isn't there, would you still wanna go? Let's suppose that you'd still be able to walk streets of gold. Let's say that you'd still be able to see family members and saints who have passed before you. You'd still get to watch beautiful sunsets day after day after day for all of eternity. You'd still have all these blessings of heaven, except for one, God himself wouldn't be there. So let me ask you, if that were the case, would you still want to go? It's a tough question. Would you still be happy in that kind of condition? The gifts, the blessings, they're wonderful. There's no question about that, but there is no gift, there is no blessing on heaven or on earth that compares to being in the presence of God. Verse six reminds us that to be in his presence is to be most blessed forever. That is Christ's greatest joy. And if we're in Christ, it is our greatest joy, our greatest desire as well. Consider what David's, what he writes in Psalm 27, verse four, famous verse. He writes this, he says, one thing I have asked from the Lord that I shall seek. that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in his temple." See, when the rubber hit the road, If you really wanted to boil his desires down, there was only one thing that David desired, that David treasured and pursued, and that is to dwell in the house of the Lord. Why? Because that's where the presence of God was. And so I pray today that this would be your greatest desire too, friends. This desire for God to be in his presence forever would be greater than your desire for the blessings that he offers, would be more powerful than your desire for lesser things like sin. See, the reason we sin is because it offers us something that in the moment we think we want. It might even seem like a blessing. But we sin because it offers us something we want just in that moment. But the more we set our minds on that thing, let's say we recognize that it is a sin. And the more we set our minds on that thing, the more tempting it becomes. If I'm trying not to drink water and I sit there all day saying, don't drink water, don't drink water, don't drink water, what am I thinking about? I'm thinking about water, right? And so it becomes very tempting for me to drink water, right? Because that's all I'm thinking about. But the more we set our minds on that one thing, the more tempting it becomes. But what if in the moment of temptation, friends, we set our minds not on the object of our temporary desire, Not on the sin that we're being tempted by in that moment, but on something that we desire above everything else in life. What if we set our minds on how greatly we desire to dwell in God's presence as the one thing that we desire, like David, the one thing that we desire more than anything else. Having this desire for God, having this desire to be in his presence above everything else is like a silver bullet in the war against the desires of the flesh. So we've seen that God blessed the King, the Lord Jesus, first with never ending days, secondly with glory, third with his presence. Now the question is why does God bless him so? Look at verse seven with me. says, for the king trusts in the Lord, and through the loving kindness of the Most High, he will not be shaken. Christ reigns from his throne, and he will not be moved. He will not be shaken, and neither will we, because God's victory is Christ's victory, and Christ's victory is the victory that he shares with his people. And the fact that he will never be moved, that he will never be shaken, is not only an assurance to us, but it's also a very stern warning to those who stand against him, refusing to love him, refusing to honor him, refusing to obey him, refusing to worship him. Those who rebel against him will not stand. Christ will never be shaken. but his enemies will be. The second half of the psalm that we're gonna go through pretty quickly here deals with the defeat of the king's enemies. Look at verse eight with me. He says, your hand will find out all your enemies. Your right hand will find out those who hate you. The first warning to those who will not bend the knee before Christ is that they cannot hide from him. The day will come, we're told in Revelation, the day will come when they will wish that the mountains would just fall on them, cave in on them, collapse on them, so they can just escape His judgment. But the reality is that there will be no place to hide. You see, to deny and to rebel against Jesus is to deny and to rebel against God. To hate Jesus is to hate God. To reject Jesus is to reject God. To refuse to worship Jesus is to refuse to worship God. Any religion monotheistic or polytheistic or whatever, any religion that does not acknowledge and worship Christ Jesus as Lord cannot be said to be acknowledging or worshiping or obeying God. We don't worship the same God as all these other religions, much to the dismay of people in those other religions and even some Christians who think that we worship the same God as some other religions. But the reason is because other religions don't worship Christ. And if they don't worship Christ, they do not worship God. If they reject Christ, they reject God. So if they reject God, how can we have the same God? How can we worship the same God? We don't, we don't. They can't worship God because they don't worship Christ. 1 John 2.23 says this, it says, whoever denies the Son does not have the Father. The one who confesses the Son has the Father also. We come to the Father through the Son. God knows who is against him and there will be no hiding from him. The time to repent and to worship and love and obey Christ as Lord, indeed as God, is now while you can. If you are running from him, stop. Stop right now, turn around and come to him in faith and repentance. He will not turn you away because you can run. But you can't hide. That's what this verse reminds us of. The second warning is of what his enemies will face when they are found. Look at verses 9 and 10 with me. It says, you will make them as a fiery oven in the time of your anger. The Lord will swallow them up in his wrath, and fire will devour them. Their offspring you will destroy from the earth, and their descendants from among the sons of men. This is just a sober reminder that God takes sin, takes rebellion very, very seriously. He's not a God who just gives a wink and a smile to sin and says, yeah, go ahead, have it your way. I don't really care. No, for those in Christ, we're reminded as we see this, that God takes sin very, very seriously. We're reminded of what those around us who wish that God would be a God who just gives a wink and a smile to sin. We see the reality of what they face ultimately if they do not repent and believe in Jesus. And so we're also reminded of the importance of evangelism, right? But we're also reminded of the importance of having a healthy dose of the fear of the Lord ourselves. But at the same time, Romans 8.1, we're reminded of this beautiful truth, Romans 8.1, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The danger that the unbeliever faces is the same danger that their children and their children's children will face apart from the gospel, apart from God's saving and intervening grace. See, parents are supposed to be on the front lines of evangelism. In fact, they are the front line of evangelism by God's design. The place where discipleship is supposed to start is right there in the family, parents and children, But if the parents will not teach their children the ways of the Lord, who will? If the parents will not teach their children the importance of repenting and believing in Christ, who will? Yes, there does come a point where children are themselves responsible for their own actions, for their either belief or disbelief. But God ordains not only the ends, he also ordains the means. And one of the primary means of discipleship is what we refer to in English as parenthood. That's the primary means of discipleship by God's design. And so, if the parents are wiped off the face of the earth in judgment, their kids face the same fate. Their entire family line will be decimated if they will not repent and believe. So finally, David reminds us that the plans of all of God's enemies, they will all be thwarted. Let's look at verses 11 and 12. He writes, though they intend evil against you and devised a plot, they will not succeed for you will make them turn their back. You will aim with your bow strings at their faces. Friends, every plan of God's enemies will fail. And that's comforting, isn't it? That's deeply, deeply comforting as we face persecution in this world. As you read reports about Christians in other countries who are being martyred, killed, murdered for their faith, we're reminded that every plan of God's enemies will ultimately fail. Whether we're talking about the devil and his fallen angels as enemies or the world or the flesh, no plan devised, no weapon formed against God's plans will prevail. None of God's plans on the other hand will fall short. None of his plans will be thwarted. God never desires something and does not accomplish what he desires. God never tries to do something and yet does not accomplish what he has decreed. God's great power saved Christ. God's great power exalted Christ because that was God's plan. That was God's desire. And thus, God accomplished it. God's power granted Christ the victory over sin and death. And God's great power fills the hearts of His people with assurance that His plans will succeed and that the plans of His enemies will not. It fills us with joy and assurance because God's victory is Christ's victory. And Christ's victory is our victory. He shares it with us. Though we face hardships, though we face difficulties, Though we might even have our hearts smashed into a million pieces on this side of glory, every one of God's plans will succeed, and every one of his enemy's plans will fail. Christ will be victorious. Christ is victorious. Does his victory fill your heart with joy? and thanksgiving. Does his victory give you comfort in your sorrows? Does it give you strength in your hardships? If it does, then we can declare with celebration and praise and thanksgiving with David what he writes in verse 13. Be exalted, O Lord, in your strength. We, we will sing and praise your power. And so, Whatever you face in life, friends, whatever hardships, whatever difficulties you're facing even today, rejoice. Rejoice, all you people of God. Rejoice, you saints. Rejoice, you who are in Christ, because our King has come. God has granted him the victory, and his plans will all succeed. He will prevail. and we can rejoice in that. Let's pray. Our most gracious Father, we do thank you for the victory that Christ won for us. We thank you for the reminder of our complete inadequacy, our complete inability, whether we're talking about sin or death. Lord, we were born, we acknowledge that we were born slaves to sin and obeyed sin's every desire, every command. But by your grace, you sent Christ to set us free. And he achieved victory and set us free from sin, from the power of sin, from the penalty of sin. And Lord, we look forward to the day when we can be in your presence away from the presence of sin. We pray, Lord, that we would remember with confidence the victory of Christ in times when we are feeling high and in times when we are feeling low. We thank you that Christ has won the victory We thank you that there is always, always a reason to rejoice in what he has done as our federal head, in our place as our substitute. Thank you that he took our sin upon himself and paid the wage that was due for it. Thank you that he took our wrath, the wrath that we deserved, and that he, in exchange, imputed his perfect righteousness to all who will believe in him so that his victory would even be shared with lowly sinners like us. Teach us, O Lord, to live in this victory, to keep Christ's victory at the front of our minds in order that Christ would be glorified in our lives. It's in His name we pray. Amen.