Please turn in your Bibles to Psalm chapter 21. It's been a few weeks since I've been in the pulpit, so it's good to be back with you in this capacity. We're continuing our series through the Psalms, and we were at Psalm 20. I'll just remind you of some of the things we looked at in Psalm 20. There's a lot of connection between these two Psalms. Really, Psalm 18, 19, 20, and 21 are thinking a lot about the king. In Psalm 20, we saw great prayers for the king. Remember, it concludes, God save the king, or it says that in the middle, and then it says, we know that the Lord will save the king in verse six of Psalm 20. We need a king who knows salvation, because we need salvation. And so we see this gospel truth, these themes of a king given to God's people to usher in salvation in a shadow here in the Psalms. And so let's give our attention now to the reading of God's word, Psalm 21, as we consider the certain victory of the king who trusts in the Lord. Psalm 21. to the choir master a psalm of David. O Lord, in your strength the king rejoices, and in your salvation how greatly he exalts. You have given him his heart's desire, and have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah. For you met him with rich blessings. 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 as a blazing oven when you appear. The Lord will swallow them up in his wrath, and fire will consume them. You will destroy their descendants from the earth and their offspring from among the children of man. 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. Thus ends the reading of God's holy word. May he bless it to our hearing this morning. Let's pray to that end. Father in heaven, we believe that these are your words. We believe that you are perfect and true, holy, just and righteous, infinitely and eternally and unchangeably good. May we taste and see your goodness this morning in your word. We need help. We thank you for this reminder that though we are weak, you are strong. Your grace is sufficient. Your power made perfect in weakness. We come to you weak and needy. May your spirit open our eyes that we would witness the glory of Christ be filled with your grace. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. We are weak. Hopefully I don't have to spend too much time convincing you of that this morning, though we often spend a lot of our lives trying to live in denial of that truth. We are weak. In our home this week, you already heard from Buss, we had some interesting things occur. We had one of those weeks that just remind us of our weakness. Some trivial things like a van breaking down, and a refrigerator breaking down, and fussy kids recovering from three weeks of vacation, and fussy parents recovering from three weeks of vacation. those trivial kinds of things. We had more significant things like being confronted with the death of a new friend and just being reminded our lives are not in our control. We are weak. If we are honest, we all know this, everyone knows this deep down, even the unbeliever knows this, that our life is not in our control, that we cannot control things. Evelyn and I have been enjoying a show called The Bear. It's about a fine dining restaurant in Chicago and it's full of lots of tension and drama as this restaurant is trying to produce something beautiful. It's trying to make food that is nourishing and exciting to those who have come. But there's egos involved, there's family baggage and drama and tension, and every step of the way, it's just barely succeeding. And we enjoy these kinds of shows that reveal that kind of tension, and as you're watching it, where they're trying to produce a new menu every night, these relationships are strained, there's pride and tension, and you're just wanting things to work, and you're watching it and you're saying, this is not sustainable. This could be such a great thing if you just slowed down and you recognize that your life is not in your control. That you're not God. You can't just force these things to work by your own effort. And you're just wanting to see things click into place where this thing succeeds. But you know that if these characters keep depending on their own pride and their own efforts, they're not going to succeed. And there's one particular scene where these two characters are kind of at a breaking point, and they're recounting the difficulty they're facing in their life, just going back and forth. A lost job, a rebellious teenager, an alcoholic mom, a struggle at work, never getting enough sleep. And then one character says, can you imagine if that wasn't the baseline for human life, if a hard life wasn't the baseline? And the other character says, well then you wouldn't be human. If life just wasn't hard, then you wouldn't be human. And there's some truth to that, isn't there? We live in a broken world. We are weak and needy. We are weak and needy. One moment you're being slung around for a joy ride on the proverbial or literal banana boat, and the next moment you're flung off with a pulled muscle. Your life is not in your control, no matter how desperately you're trying to hold on. And so what is the solution? What can provide certainty? And not just certainty, but certain joy. Certain joy. Certain victory over all that is wrong in this life. Certain deliverance. What can provide that? Is that possible? Well, it's not you. You cannot make that happen. We try to, and sadly, many are living in denial, trying to obtain that kind of lasting, certain joy and deliverance, but we cannot do it. Look at verse one. Oh Lord, in your strength, the king rejoices. In your salvation, how greatly he exalts. The only hope of certain, lasting, perfect rejoicing and joy and victory and deliverance is the strength of the Lord. And as we see in this Psalm, being on the right side of that strength. God graciously employs His almighty strength on behalf of those who receive His steadfast love by faith. Verse 7 is a focal point of this psalm. For the one who trusts in the Lord, through His steadfast love, he shall not be moved. There's a lot here in this psalm. We can look at how David modeled this psalm well, or ways in which David did not model this psalm well. We can think about how David faced real battles with real earthly enemies where he looked out and saw these threats and he cried out to the Lord with Psalm 20, please give me victory. And then he experienced real answer to his prayers and real victory over seemingly insurmountable odds with these mighty surrounding forces with the Philistines and the Amalekites and all of these enemies of God's people. We could see how this psalm is a model for good earthly kings. We could pray for leaders who would embody this psalm, finding their joy and their hope in the strength of the Lord, that all those under their authority would be blessed. But what I want us to focus on this morning is how the King of Kings fulfilled this psalm. And how in fulfilling this psalm, Jesus invites us to trust in Him, to exalt in the Lord in Him, to be blessed by His victory, and even to follow in His example. Our main point, trust in the Lord with thankfulness and hope. Trust in the Lord with thankfulness and hope. And we could even add, trust in the Lord with thankfulness and hope with our King. or in our king, or for our king. Pick your preposition, whatever, all of those work there. We trust in the Lord with our king. Firstly, we see we trust with thankfulness. The first half of the psalm is recounting how God has answered prayer. It's giving thanks. And we see as God blesses the king, God blesses the people. If you look back to verse four of chapter 20, we see these Psalms that put together to give us an assurance that God hears and answers prayer. Verse four, it's crying out, may God grant you, speaking of the king, may God grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans. Then we see in verse two of 21, you have given him his heart's desire. God has heard the prayer of the people for the king. You have given him his heart's desire. You have not withheld the request of his lips. As we see this laid out for us, does this mean that we should expect God to answer all of our prayers exactly how we ask him to answer? Does God always give us all of our heart's desires? No, and we can be thankful. God does not always give us all of our heart's desires because sometimes we desire wrong things. We want wrong things. We have wrong desires. God never does anything wrong, and so in answering prayer, God is perfect. The implication is that the king's desires here were all good. God gave the king his good desires. What God answered with was answering good desires of the king. Look at what he gives. Verses 2-6 lists out all the things that God gives to the king. These faithful and good desires. The king desired to meet with him. And in meeting with God, he brings rich blessing. Do you desire to meet with God? He will say yes to that desire. That is how God works. He is a God who meets with His people, tabernacles in the midst of His people, and dwells His people by His Holy Spirit. Is that your desire? to meet with Him. In meeting with Him, there is rich blessing. A golden crown was placed on the king's head, and not just a golden crown, but a crown that God Himself has set on his head. As Derek Kinder says in his commentary, the giver of the crown, not its gold, is the true value of this blessing. That God has affirmed the calling that God has blessed him with authority and status. Life itself. We're reminded from this that life itself is a gift from God. Each breath that you take, it's a gift that we do not deserve. And when the king cries out for life, God answers it. And we can think of particular times where God answered David's cry for life in very tangible, immediate ways. And God answers those prayers at times according to His will for us. When we ask for life, He preserves us. He often preserves our lives far more than we probably realize. Every moment that we're still alive, God's work is in us, preserving us, showing mercy that we do not deserve. And that the psalm goes on to show that there's much more in view than just those kind of immediate, tangible ways that God preserves life. He asks life of you, gave it to him, length of days forever and ever. He doesn't just give air in your lungs in this moment, but he offers you eternal life. We can be confident by the profession of faith from our friend Bill, that when he asked for life, the Lord answered that request. That Bill is knowing eternal life, even now. We have the hope of the resurrection of the dead. Death has been defeated for the child of God. And he gives not just life as if you have this eternal life. It could have been rightly and justly some sort of eternal life of servitude towards God. And there will be eternal service, but it will be joyful service. And it will be service in this glorified status as kings for eternity. He gives glory and honor and majesty. These eternal blessings. and we're sold, you make him most blessed forever. You make him glad with the joy of your presence. What is the joy? What do we have joy in as God answers our right desires? It is not the fleeting pleasures of this life, but in the very presence of God. What blessing. that God gives first to His King, and then through His King to us, His Kingdom. These desires that we see listed out here, these are the desires of our King. I'd encourage you this afternoon, go read John 17, that beautiful, recorded prayer of Christ. And as you read what Christ prayed for as he anticipated the cross, but also anticipated glory, you'll see these things that are listed here on the heart of Christ. This Psalm is a declaration that our King, the King of Kings prayers are being answered. As Christopher Ashe says in his commentary, the New Covenant Church sings these verses to celebrate our certainty that every petition ever voiced from the heart of Jesus Christ will be fully granted. God does not withhold the request of His King. God does not withhold the request of those trusting in Him, desiring Him. And Christ, in our place, as our representative, as our head, trusted in the Lord perfectly, desiring perfectly. You see, as you consider your own shortcomings, your own weaknesses, your own failings, The perfection of Christ's desires are offered to you. And those desires are answered by the Almighty God. The perfection of Christ's desires are counted as your desires in justification. That when God looks upon you in judgment, He sees righteous desires. And the desires of Christ are offered to you in sanctification, that the Holy Spirit would be working in your heart, that your heart would desire as Christ desired. That you would be putting to death desires that say, I want to live for myself, I want immediate satisfaction, I want to be my own king. And you would know those good, life-giving desires that say, I want to meet with God. I want to have joy in His presence. I want to be a co-heir with Christ. Those desires of our King are offered to you by faith. What a certain and sure foundation for God's love. We know a blessing not by our own obedience, not by our own works, but because Christ was perfectly faithful in our place. We see this in verse 7. What is the basis for the thankfulness of the King? Trust in the Lord. The King trusted in the Lord. Christ trusted in His Heavenly Father. He came in our place, came under the law, He fulfilled the law. He trusted in the Lord as we are called to trust in the Lord. And the results of that trust, the trust in the Lord, it results in the steadfast love of God. That's covenant language. The covenant of grace fulfilled in Christ. The covenant of redemption accomplished by Christ trusting in the Lord. That the steadfast love of the Lord would be Christ as man and offered to all men who place their faith in Him, united to Him. the steadfast love of the Lord, and it results in certain joy and deliverance. He shall not be moved. Trust in the Lord. It is the basis for past blessings and confidence in future blessings. It's this hinge verse for the psalm. He shall not be moved. Back up at the firs for our summer conference a couple weeks ago, you could go out on that trampoline on the lake And all that thing did was move around. It was fun to try to knock each other off balance. You can imagine how that trampoline would do in the middle of a hurricane. It's not where you would want to go to find refuge. Trust in the Lord that through His steadfast love, you shall not be moved. You can think back to Psalm 18. The Lord is our rock. Nothing that life throws at it can shake that foundation. Romans 8. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, nakedness, danger, or sword? No. In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. God has given us this King. We have been united to the King who accomplishes this and secures it for us, that what is Christ's is ours, that the love that God the Father has for Christ is offered to us, steadfast love, through which we shall not be moved. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? And then we move to the second portion of this psalm. It is a difficult portion of the psalm. Verses 8-12, one difficulty, a lesser difficulty, is trying to discern who is being spoken of here. There's a shift. We're addressing someone in the psalm. Is it the Lord or is it the king? You'll see even seemingly moving back and forth between the king and the Lord and there's some arguments This is referring to what the Lord will do and other arguments. No, this is referring to what the king will do I Think as we consider the psalm from the light of the cross Through the light of the New Testament, looking back, considering what Christ said, that He is the fulfillment of the Psalms, we can see how there maybe is some intentional ambiguity about who is being spoken of here. The Lord and the King held together. There's always been a connection between the King of God's people and the Lord. But in Christ, we see this most fully, as the God-man. Fully God, fully man. Mediator and Redeemer of God's people. In Christ, that victorious King, we see the ultimate expression of God's people's expectations being fulfilled. These expectations that are laid out here in verses 8-12. This is the hope of God's people in light of the steadfast love we have known in Christ. That Christ would be victorious over all of His and our enemies. the victory and blessing described here in verses eight through 12. It is not something that just any king can accomplish. It helps us to know that we are meant to be looking forward, past David, past Solomon, past every good king of God's people. The victory that is being described here speaks of the king, the Messiah. It is a complete and eternal victory. It is consummation, end times victory. We even see this kind of language. At His appearance, these things will take place. And we now know that in part some of these things were accomplished at Christ's first appearance, in His earthly ministry, in His active and passive obedience, His death and resurrection on the cross. He defeated His enemies. He was victorious. It is finished. And yet the consummation, the fulfillment and final effects of what Christ finished in His first coming will be ultimately realized when He appears at His second coming. And we can think of how the New Testament authors inspired by the Holy Spirit picked up language from Psalm 21 to describe what Christ will do when He comes back. Second Thessalonians 1, we read as our additional scripture reading. When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, and you see that language from Psalm 21, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. First Corinthians 15, verses 24 through 26. Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God after destroying every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. And the last enemy to be destroyed is death. Revelation 6. The rulers of the earth call to the mountains and the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand? and then Revelation 19. Then I saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse, and the one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and he makes war, and his eyes are like a flame of fire. The king of kings, our king, will come again, and he will ride out to make war. and it will be a righteous and holy war, one in which he is victorious over the kingdom of sin and darkness and Satan, a war to end all wars. And as we read the might of our King, blessed by the Lord, going out against his enemies, we should have a reverent fear. And we should be humble, knowing that it is only by trusting in the Lord, by receiving that gracious, steadfast love of the Lord, that we are not also counted as enemies. We were once enemies, and yet Christ died for us. Colossians 1. And you who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, He is now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death. By God's grace, trusting in Him, we are given relationship with the King. We are made part of that kingdom. He has won victory for His people. And that victory is certain and sure. And that moment of victory was costly. Christ the King has won victory for His people by enduring the wrath of God against our sin. And He now triumphs over all His enemies and rules over all His peoples as King of kings and Lord of lords. It is the Lamb who was slain who has now been exalted as King. He purchased the kingdom with His blood, that we would not be those enemies who are engulfed in flame at His return. Because of God's grace, this psalm is not something that we need to fear in a way that would drive us away from God, but fear in a way that draws us closer to Him, depending on His grace. We need to remember this psalm is given for us to sing. These verses 8-12, as difficult as they are, They are a reason to rejoice. We can sing with certain hope that Christ will be victorious over His enemies and He is perfect in His judgment. We can sing of our King and our Lord that He will do this. He will win. And we want Christ to win. We can be confident in our future and our joy is certain in Him. We exult in His strength. The Lord and the King held together, they accomplished victory over all of God's enemies. Against all those who hate the King, who never turn to Him by faith, who never repent and believe in Him. but also against the brokenness in this life, against sin and sickness and suffering and death, against Satan and all of his forces. What do we read here? These will not succeed. They will try. They will devise and plan. They will attempt. Hear this promise. They will not succeed. God's wrath is exact, engulfing in flame, swallowed in wrath, picking off faces with arrows. He does what no other king can do. His victory is certain, and His certain victory is offered to His people. We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Most people are happy to tolerate or acknowledge and believe in a Jesus who is loving and humble and meek. We're pretty quick to embrace that conception of Christ. But we must remember that that same Jesus who is holy and completely humble and meek and loving is also holy and wrathful. righteous, and just. These are held together. And as people who are part of His kingdom, we can give thanks. It is a great blessing and assurance that we will be judged by our Savior, that the Son of Man, the Bridegroom, Messiah King, is the one who will come to execute wrath on the last day. The one who has purchased our eternal lives with His blood is the one who will sit on the judgment seat. So this is hope for those who know Him. Brothers and sisters, it is also a reminder we need to be warning the unbeliever. Our King is coming back and those who remain in penitence and those who do not turn and repent, they will be judged And so we need to take up that gospel call as he has told us to, warning of the consequence of sin. People need to be confronted in their turning from the King. We do not want this judgment for them. We need to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. that there are real consequences for rejecting the Creator God and the King of Kings. We need to invite and call all who are lost to find refuge in that King, that His blessing would be theirs. Verses 8-12 of this psalm, it can sound harsh, it can be difficult to swallow, but when we humble ourselves and we see these things from God's perspective, As those united to the King, we see justice and hope. Our King will bring justice. All of the brokenness of this life, all of the things that we know are out of our own control, our King is able to make right. And this King and his victory, it is available to anyone who would believe. We are weak, but God is strong. We have a King whose strength is the Lord. Our life is not in our control, but through God's steadfast love for us, offered in our King and Savior, we will not be moved. How does this psalm conclude? The people are singing and praising the Lord for His power, for what He has done. Following in the steps of the King, the people exalt the Lord for his strength. He is in control. He alone can deliver and save. He alone can give certain joy. Is this your heart's desire this morning? Do you long for someone to say to you, the things that you are desiring, they're going to come about. They will be accomplished. Well, by the grace of God, we are able to desire the good that He is offering to us. And He answers those desires. Our desires, our longings, they don't always come about as we would want, because we are short-sighted, we struggle with sin, we struggle in these things. But He gives the desires for the things that are truly right and good. He gives that greatest desire, the most unimaginable desire, He gives us Himself. This is certain hope and joy. Trust in the Lord with thankfulness and with hope in and with and for our King. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we ask that each person here would know the grace of your strength If anyone here does not yet know you, has not yet trusted in you, we ask that this warning from your word would be heard in humility and clarity. That each of us would believe that just as certain is victory for Christ, there is judgment waiting for those who reject you. Father, may we place our faith in you that by your steadfast love, we would rejoice exceedingly, that we would know joy, that we would have a joy that is evident to those who interact with us as we go out from here, that we would be a people of certain hope, knowing that our King is victorious. We are weak. We need your strength. Help us to remember that by your Spirit and to rest in you. to rejoice, to give you praise. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.