Today's scripture lesson comes from 1 Chronicles 29 verses 10-13. Hear the word of the Lord. Therefore David blessed the Lord in the presence of all the assembly. And David said, Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of Israel, our Father, for ever and ever. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Amen. You may be seated there. We had 14 books of the 66 of the Holy Book that I had never preached from in the 35 plus years. We're going to cover, Lord willing, all of them. We've got two down. This is the third. Next Sunday, Ecclesiastes. Sunday after, Lord willing, Song of Solomon. After that, a minor prophet, probably Nahum or somebody like that. We'll go in order. We've covered 2 Samuel already. and numbers, but here today we have this glorious text. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank you that every text of Holy Scripture, from whichever book of the Bible, all speaks of Christ, brings us to him, lifts us into your presence through the Messiah, just like David came to you through him as well. Now grant us grace, Father, to love you well We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. So the end of 1 Chronicles details much of the work that David had done in preparing the temple that would be built by his son Solomon. Now it's interesting that the king gives lots of directions for how God is to be worshipped in this temple. He had also called for contributions from the people, and they had been extraordinarily lavish in bringing all kinds of goods so that the temple would be built, much more than they really needed. That's usually how it is in a healthy church like ours. People are so exuberant and thankful to be able to worship God that they do that sort of thing. David had instructed his successor Solomon in how this god was to be worshipped, and the church had come through with flying colors. They had brought all kinds of goods for the building of this special temple that would be erected during Solomon's era in the succession of David. Now, they heartily, the tribes do, Adore this Yahweh God, their Lord and King, in today's text, and King David leads them in this adoration. Now, oftentimes we like to refer to David as the warrior king, right? This wonderful man, gentle and yet strong, flawed in many ways and yet a heart for God, a man after God's own heart. But the Holy Scripture also has this wonderful, lovely appellation of him found in 2 Samuel 23, 1b. He is called the sweet psalmist of Israel. And in that spirit then, Let us even today make it our gospel goal on this Resurrection Sabbath day to praise our God with great delight as his blood-bought church, looking together at 1 Chronicles 29, verses 10 through 13. And if you're new here and you want to use the outline, we begin here. The title of the sermon is David's Sweet Praise of God. The doctrine, David's prayer is a full-orbed adoration of his beloved triune God. Remember that David here is worshipping God through Jesus Christ, the very one who would come through his line. Remember the 2nd Samuel sermon, how David is sitting and God had promised him that the line of the Messiah would come through him. So David is worshipping God, Yahweh, through the Christ who would come. Yahweh is God the Father, Yahweh is God the Son, Yahweh is God the Holy Spirit. So David, just like we do, worship the Triune True Deity, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ ultimately, a thousand years after David, and in the Holy Scripture which directs us to Him. Let us now recognize that David's prayer is a full-orbed adoration of his beloved triune God. First, the Lord had blessed the king's life and ministry. Our love and praise of God, your love and praise of God, does not come out of the blue. Not one of you ever loved or praised or worshipped or thanked God for no good reason. You do it because God has done a great work in you. No one worships God at all, let alone a Rite, who has not already received God's highest and best privileges and blessings in the person of Jesus Christ and His gospel of free grace and His blood atonement. Everyone else has no knowledge at all of the worship of God. Only those who know Jesus Christ by His grace worship Him, and of course they do it happily. They have cause to do it. You who are by grace alone in Christ today know exactly what I'm talking about. And if any of you are not in Christ, you're wondering what I am talking about. It's two different worlds, dears. There is a world of the Kingdom of God, the world of the Spirit, the world of truth and joy and reality, and there's everything else. And we're all in one or the other. Did David have hardships, trials, sufferings, even sins? Of course he did. Did this keep him from worshiping and praising and adoring his great triune God through the Christ who would come from his very own line? No, it did not. In fact, these difficulties only propelled his praise of God. What has God done for you in Jesus Christ and His blood atonement and His glorious resurrection? Has He cleansed away all of your sins? If He has, then you and you alone have real cause for rejoicing, celebration, and praise. And that's what we're going to look at here in this next point. The Lord had blessed the king's life and ministry. And now God's servant greatly extols Him, the Lord. When we praise God, what are we doing? We are expressing His greatness and glory. What if the saints didn't exist on the earth? What if there was no true church anywhere to be found on a fallen universe? Would God still be great and glorious? Would the triune deity who existed before the creation ever was, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, would He be magnificent and highly lifted up and grand and spectacular and majestic? Yes, He would, but there'd be no human beings to realize that, recognize that, see that, understand that, or return thanks and praise to Him on account of that, would there? There would be no church to do so. Why did God create anything so that others can enjoy Him and praise and worship Him forever? Indeed, you exist, as you know from your catechism, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. How do you do that? By finding your full delight, your pleasure in Him. through a loving Father who has embraced you with every good and perfect gift in His Son, giving you all the best of everything, through the Son of God who shed His blood for you, through the Holy Spirit who applies the atonement, that beautiful, miraculous, blessed Holy Spirit who gives it to you, and therefore you have a true and accurate triune worship of the true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Why do you praise God? Because He loved you before you were ever created, if you were in Christ Jesus. His elect church, He elected and predestined before the foundation of the world. And in time and space, He calls each one of those who are under the wrath of God for their sins and in Adam, and He saves them out of the morass of the pit of hell and the slime of the earth, fallen in Adam. That's why you love and praise God. Would you bless the Lord today if Jesus Christ had not died for you and risen for you for your justification? No, you would not. No one does who doesn't know and love God and Jesus Christ. They don't love God, they hate God. Just like we did in our fallen estate in Adam. Not neutral, not on the fence, passionately hating him with a loathing. Because we want our own way and God is holy. The difference between the two worlds, the two kingdoms, the two cities. The city church of God loves him in Jesus Christ for what he's done. The community of the redeemed, let them say so. And the world despises him, just like we did. Let's look at the verses 10 through 13, 1 Chronicles 29, and appreciate some good reasons the church's saints glory in their great God. Now we mentioned this dynamic above already that the redeemed of the Lord honor him on the foundation of solid and steadfast rationale. The great David was never shy and never held back on the criteria for praise of his beloved triune Yahweh God. In today's text, recording events at the end of his life is no exception to his general pattern. And therefore, let us join in some of the good reasons the church's saints glory in their great God. First, because Yahweh is our unique divine possession, verse 10. Therefore David blessed the Lord in the presence of all the assembly, and David said, Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever. Notice that David owns this God. He is David's God. David is in the line of the elect seed, the line of the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He says here, blessed are you, O Lord, the God of Israel, our Father, the church of the living God. David makes this bold proclamation in, quote, the presence of all the assembly in the LXX or the Septuagint ecclesia, the church, the people of God in the old covenant or the new, the church of God for which Jesus Christ died and shed his precious blood. The Lord Yahweh is the God of His people. He always has been, He always will be. Everything God does in relation to rational beings, even within the context of the Blessed Holy Trinity themselves, is covenantal. Everything God does is covenantal. David and all the redeemed of the Lord in the church, Old and New Testament, bless God because we're in the covenant of grace in Jesus' blood atonement. The Holy Trinity themselves crafted our redemption in the covenant of redemption before the creation of the world. And all the fallen and damned demons who used to be angels and all the reprobate humans because they insist on breaking in one form or another the covenant of works, are under that covenant of works, which condemns them because they cannot keep it. They're under the wrath of God because they have broken the covenant of works. And Jesus kept it for us and applied that for us on our account. He imputed his own righteousness to us. Here in verse 10, David is celebrating the everlasting nature of the covenant of grace, and we who are in Christ get to do that today, too. Some good reasons, the church is saints glory in their great God. Yahweh is our unique divine possession, and because Yahweh is our absolutely sovereign king, verse 11. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all." What a beautiful verse. Wow. Go home and memorize that verse. That verse captures so much in just 45 ESV English words. David leaves nothing out of the equation of Yahweh's unqualified rule and dominion over everything and everyone, all creation. David understood this. He's at the end of his life. He had experienced the grace of God, the forgiveness of God, the chastisement of God as his father for his sins, the sufferings he had to endure, and yet, at the end of his life, he could glory in this God, in his sovereignty, his kingdom, his majesty, his dominion. That's a beautiful verse. Every time you and I face a problem in this fallen world, we would do ourselves a huge favor reserved only for the redeemed of the Lord in the Church of Christ, and recall to our minds this fact that our God is completely sovereign over everything. Even those problems that we're facing, everything! Nothing is outside of His control. David is so expansive in this glorious verse. He opens wide his heart and mind and ascribes to God everything of value, worth, and importance. Listen, dear saints, today are you concerned about the state of affairs in the world? Are you worried about things? Don't be. There's no reason to worry. There's no cause for fear. There's no reason for you to be upset about anything in the world. All the promises of God are yes and amen to you who are in Christ Jesus. All the blessings, all the protection, all the grace, all the mercy, all the kindness, all the comfort you could ever need or want is found in Christ. Oh, the world, it's tied up around its own axle and underwear today, and rightly so, it should be. But not the saints of God. You should not be. The true Church never has a day or a night when her Father is not watching over her, protecting her, blessing her, loving her, giving her everything in Jesus alone for all life and godliness. In fact, this verse 11 says, quote, all that is in the heavens and in the earth is your God's. He owns it all. All of it is His. What cause do you have for worry or concern or being disturbed by anything? Be at peace, dear saints. Perfect peace have all those whose hearts are settled on Him, Christ. Isaiah 26.3. Perfect peace. This is yours. This isn't the world's. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have come and overcome the world. John 16.33. Are you anxious that maybe you will not possess this victory that is the property of your King Father through Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit? If you are in Christ and His church, then now you know that verse 11 says, Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty. And that victory is for you, the saints of God. You have no cause for anxiety, for worry, for concern. David ended his long life full of adventure, full of wonder, full of stories, highs and lows, and a perfect assurance that His Father loved Him and had provided for Him in the Christ who would come. Good reasons for the Church of Saints glory in their great God. Yahweh is our unique divine possession, our absolutely sovereign King, and because Yahweh is our supreme source of all good things, verses 12 and 13. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name. Now granted, David is largely referring to, at the end of these verses, this prayer he's giving, he's referring to the generous benevolent spirit that was displayed by the church at that time, which gave so abundantly to the material and financial needs of the temple that his son would soon build after David would die and go to heaven. But the King is careful here to situate all the glory for and in this fact on Yahweh Himself, the faithful triune God of the Old and New Covenant Church. Take a look at what comes to the people of God in these two verses. In Jesus Christ alone, riches, honor, power, might, greatness, and strength. What does the world in which you live lust for at every turn, all the time? Riches, honor, power, might, greatness and strength. Who gets any of that? Only the saints of the church. No one else gets it. It's all in Christ Jesus. The regenerate children of God who love him in and through this great and glorious Messiah. What are the saints to do with all the blessings God gives us? The very same thing the church did in David's age. Take those resources and build up the body of Christ, the church, the temple of God, the community of the faith, the only community that matters on the earth, nothing else does. No other cultural phenomenon matters. The Church matters. Matters absolutely. Build up the body of Christ. When we do this, we glorify God, we bless the Kingdom Church of God, we serve the whole world, and we benefit ourselves as well. Every human being either wastes his or her life or invests it. Those who gain their lives lose them and go to hell. Those who lose their lives for Christ and the gospel gain them and enjoy glory in this world and heaven to come. Mark 8.35. Let's do some more application this morning and understand why it is lovely for us to join David in his sweet praise of God. It is to perfectly accord with our new natures in Christ to exuberantly and joyfully bless the Lord God of heaven and earth. Only the demons and the unregenerate humans find no place in their hearts for the adoration of the one true and only Triune God. Where is your heart today? Let us not deceive ourselves. We will have something of an acid test here in this application section. Let's be honest with ourselves and know where we are. and face the reality of the truth and not lie, not deceive ourselves. God knows everything. Let's be honest. Why it is lovely for us to join David in the sweet praise of God. First, since our union with Christ affords us the highest privileges known to humankind. This is a good reason to praise God, isn't it? That we get the highest, most glorious privileges and opportunities that anyone could ever have in this world or the next. We have a better state than Adam did before he fell. We're in Christ's righteousness, not our own. But observe, there's a huge qualifier here. Only those who are united to God through Jesus Christ get this privilege and honor. Everyone else is consigned to groveling in the dirt and filth and sin of this fallen world. But the sincere offer is made to all in the gospel and it's being made even right now as well. A sincere offer of life and grace, truth, love, holiness, happiness, joy and fulfillment. Only in Christ. You do know, dear saints, that human beings were not made to go to hell. They were originally created to glorify God. What happened? Why the problem? We all fell an atom in the Garden of Eden. And now we slosh around, flail away, seeking to make our own way, create our own gods, establish gods that cannot save, human beings that will die, flesh that cannot be relied upon, all kinds of false deities to prop up our fear and our insecurity. And rightly so, if somebody's outside of Christ. I don't blame them. We're all created in the image of God. That's how God made us. We have a God. We must have a God. There must be one that we can look to. But only those who look to the true God in Jesus Christ know Him at all. Everyone else is doomed. These gods fail every time. Here's the poor world we live in. Do we have any compassion for the people in this world? Remember where we used to be? Where we thought flesh could help us? Where we thought government or politicians or human beings experts or scientists or smart people or wise people of the world could help us. Doctors and lawyers and Indian chiefs and all kinds of others could help us. There's only one king. His name is Christ. All good comes through Him, Him alone. As we are united to God through our glorious mediator between God and men, 1 Timothy 2.5, the Lord Jesus, by God-given faith, we now become someone we never were before. We now enjoy a life, a joy, a peace that we could never have even imagined existed. One of my main jobs as your pastor for 35 years is to be convincing you that there is a life out there, a kingdom of joy, far beyond anything you can imagine in this world. Some of you might be saying, I'm afraid to go there. I'm afraid what it will look like to abandon all my sins, my pleasures, my beloved lusts, and iniquities that I love and I cleave to, I depend on. What will happen if I do this? It's a good question. It's an honest question. But Jesus Christ says, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for my burden is light. He will give you what you need. That's Matthew 11, 28, 29. He will give you the glorious grace that you must have. Is it scary to enter into this world of joy? Is it dangerous? Yes. Is it hard? Yes. The way is narrow. Will it involve suffering? Yes. Through many tribulations must we enter the kingdom of God. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, dears. But will you regret it if you give up on your false hopes? What you know in your heart is an illusion and cannot save. You will not regret it. Indeed, cling to Jesus by faith. We become something we never were. Our whole being gets brought to life. We begin to live for the very first time. We are lifted into the very heart of God himself. It is hard to explain the glories of the kingdom, the life in Christ, but it is a glorious life. Enter into it with joy, with celebration, with confidence. Go there. Don't hold back. When Satan says, you can't go, you must stay with the world, resist it. When the world says, don't leave me, don't leave me, leave it. Go to him. You'll not regret it. Despite your fleshes and the devil's lies to the contrary, and they will, you won't regret it. Since our union with Christ affords us the highest privileges known to humankind, it inevitably results in joyful celebration in and of our Redeemer. In this one, the unspeakably wonderful blessings and benefits of being in Christ, namely, experiencing for the very first time ever true and perfectly well-grounded joy. Last Sunday in the Reformation worship service at Oktoberfest, which we were so blessed to be part of, and God anointed it with such grace, I quoted Paul in Philippians 1.25 where he wrote, "...convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith." Progress and joy in the faith. Regenerative faith in Christ brings great joy. God himself rejoices. Luke 15 verse 20. The angels in heaven rejoice. Luke 15 verse 10. The people on earth rejoice, Acts 8.8, when the Spirit of God does a wonderful work through His church in the lives of others. What this world needs, dears, is a heavenly celebration of the first rate And the only person that can bring it is Jesus Christ. The only place in which it can happen is the church. And the only message that can bring it about is the message of the gospel of free grace in Jesus' blood and righteousness. Embrace the Messiah by faith today. Do not resist him. Do not continue in futility, misery, sin. hopelessness. Embrace this Messiah by faith today just like David did. Despite his sins, he was a man after God's heart. Beloved, David's sweet praise of God came from a heart made new by Christ. Let us fully join in David's sweet praise of God. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for David's sweet praise of you here at the end of 1 Chronicles. We love David, Lord, because he reminds us so much of ourselves. You were so kind to him, so gracious to him. Thank you that he ended his race well. May we do the same in Jesus, giving you praise and thanks in his holy name. This we pray through Christ alone. Amen.