Well, our sermon this morning is taken from Matthew chapter 22. We'll be finishing this chapter today. Matthew chapter 22. And just as we begin, I'll just let everyone know kind of the order of things right now. I'm generally working to preach two Sundays a month and bring in guest preachers from our sister churches and the surrounding churches for the other two weeks of the month. So next week we'll have Brother Dave Gaskill from Providence Reformed up in Toledo come and bring us the word. But until then, we will worship together over this text this morning. Matthew chapter 22. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I ask that you would help us together to exalt over your name this morning, to exalt in the truths of your word. Lord, we ask that you would enlarge our hearts, that we may run that we may obey, that we may have greater faith and full assurance of you, of your salvation that is given to us freely. I ask that the words which I speak today would not be clutter or distraction from what your word says. I thank you for your sure promise that what you command, what you speak, goes forth and accomplishes all that you have given it to do, Lord. Far be it from us to confuse our words with yours, and so we ask that you would be honored and glorified in the name of Jesus today. Amen. Let's read the last part of this chapter together, starting in verse 41. Now, while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he? They said to him, the son of David. He said to them, how is it then that David in the spirit calls him Lord, saying, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son? And no one was able to answer him a word. Nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. Last week, we talked about the great commandment. Jesus gave an answer to this question of the Pharisees, that last question which they brought to him, and now Jesus turns the tables, and while they are gathered together, he asks a question of them. And I trust each one of us here probably has already resolved this in their mind, the tension of David's Son and David's Lord is clearly resolved when we see that Jesus Christ is both the Son of David by birth, by the flesh, and yet the Son of God by the Spirit. He is truly God and truly man. But this confession that Jesus Christ is Lord Bringing those three things together, Jesus, the Son of Nazareth, Christ, the long-expected Messiah and Lord of heaven and earth, bringing those three things together in this confession can be called the Great Confession, if you will. This confession divides the world, does it not? 1 Corinthians 12, verse 3, Paul talks about how no one confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord except by the Spirit. Likewise, 1 John, in both chapter 2 and in chapter 4, has many similar things to say, where he says, no one confesses Christ unless he has the Father. No one has the Father unless he has Christ. And we know that there are two races of humanity, if you will. Not races according to flesh and blood, but races according to those who have faith in Christ and those who do not. That is, there is those who are still in their sins in Adam and those who have been redeemed from their sins in Christ. This confession divides the world. And because of that, this confession also grounds the church of Jesus Christ. Remember in Matthew chapter 16, which we were there not too many weeks ago, if you believe that, Peter is standing before Christ, and Christ asks him, who do you say that I am? And Peter says, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus says, blessed are you. Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you. And it was upon that confession that Jesus was to build his church, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. So not only does this confession divide the world, but this confession is the ground of the church of Jesus Christ. It is that profession by which those who are Christ's are known. But not only that, this confession is the theology upon which all theology is based. All the learning of the church is based upon this confession. Book of the New Testament, Romans, that great exposition of the Christian doctrines of salvation begins in this way, where Paul, one of the first things he wants to do is declare that Jesus Christ is not merely a man, but he is the Son of God, and let's say, Quote it wrong, I'm rapidly turning so I can read this to you. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his son who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead. Jesus Christ, our Lord. You see, when Paul wanted to begin to expound the doctrines of Christianity to the church in Rome, and doubtless lay a foundation for all of those who would be followers of Jesus throughout the rest of the history of the world, he began with this great confession, Jesus Christ is Lord. But not only this, this great confession doesn't just divide, doesn't just found the church, doesn't just ground all her theology, but in the end, it unifies every single person, whether believer or not. Paul says in the book of Philippians chapter 2, on that day, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And so, though we had the great commandment last week, today we have this great confession. Jesus asks a probing question of the Pharisees, and he aims to elicit this response, this confession from them. And so, if you will, you can look and see that Jesus, though he here puts the Pharisees to shame, though he triumphs over his enemies, still is held out to them. This opportunity to confess Jesus Christ is Lord. And right off the bat, we see the mercy of Christ given not only to them, but to all in the crowds who would stand by and listen to this exchange between Jesus, who is now in his temple, this temporal picture of the eternal temple, confronting those Pharisees, the leaders of his people who were hypocrites. In that moment, Jesus is still offering himself as the great solution to sin. So what is the aim of this question? Well first, let's notice Jesus and how he interacts with the scriptures. Pay close attention with me, we're back in Matthew chapter 22, and this is what Jesus says. After asking who do you think the Christ is, or whose son is he? And they said, the son of David. And Jesus says, how is it then that David in the spirit calls him Lord? And I just want to notice a few things as we begin to look at how Jesus is operating, what he's driving at, what he's eliciting from this crowd, and therefore what he would lay to our hearts this morning. I want to pay attention to how Jesus interacts with the scriptures. It's not a little thing that Jesus says, what does David mean when he says this in the spirit? First off, Jesus is not afraid to use the scriptures, nor is Jesus a one who comes and says, I'm the son of God, I have no need for the scriptures. No, Jesus upholds the word of God, the written word of God, as infallible truth. Though he himself is the son of God, he is looking at Old Testament scriptures and holding this out as an indictment to the Pharisees and says, look at what the testimony of David is. But then, not only this, we see something about how scripture is written. He says David says this in the Spirit. Jesus up here upholds the inspiration of Holy Scripture. David wrote these things, yet by David, the Spirit says these things. And so we ought not to think of the scriptures as a mere dictation, as something which people, the saints of old wrote as if they had no influence over it or no human agency in it, but the Spirit moving and writing infallibly through David says this, and David says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand. And so Jesus appeals to scripture, he upholds the sufficiency of scripture to reveal who he himself is, and he appeals to this because the Pharisees are those who pride themselves in knowing the Old Testament. This is their whole career, their whole prestige. This is who they are. If there's someone who knows the law, who knows the scriptures, it's the Pharisees, it's the scribes. And so Jesus here questions them. And so we ask, if the Pharisees couldn't answer this question, What's the resolution to it? And as we've already said, there's no mystery here for those who have come to Christ. I trust you have come to Christ today, not merely because he's a good man, but because you have seen Jesus is the Son of God and he has the authority to forgive sins. So you understand that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. But particularly, I want to press on you today that these Pharisees ought not have been ignorant of this truth. This isn't merely a New Testament thing that we can see centuries later, but the Pharisees here ought to have known that Christ was God. Turn with me first, then we're gonna turn to a bunch of places. I probably will turn more slowly than you will this morning, so we'll do our best to stay together. We're gonna start in Isaiah chapter four. In God's providence, we're going through Isaiah in our Wednesday prayer. And so in my preparation as I was listening to some sermons on that, the speaker was helpfully drawing our mind to this reality. And so we're gonna take a little excursion here and just look at one thread which passes from the Old Testament all the way into the New that reveals that the Christ was not merely a son of David, but was also the son of God. There are many ways that we could see this. We could trace this through the Psalms, and we could trace this through other themes. But we're going to look at one theme, and that's the theme of the branch. The branch was the term given to the coming Christ. That is, a shoot to come out from that stump of David. The Jewish nation was cut down at the root, and yet a shoot was to come forth. That's this word, a branch. A remnant was there, and that remnant, through the shoot, was going to be redeemed. So first, let's turn to Isaiah chapter 4. You may be there already, and I am not. Isaiah chapter 4, and we read this, says in verse 2. In that day, the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and honor of the survivors of Israel. And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem. So this first introduction, the branch, we already see. When Jesus talks about Jerusalem and Zion, he's talking about that eschatological Zion, that heavenly Jerusalem where all the saints are washed with the blood of the one who would come. And here he is called the branch. But it's not so explicit here. This is the first inkling we get. And I'm taking us through the order that it was given to me. And so forgive me if this is not necessarily the most chronological way in the history of the Old Testament. But this, I hope, will be helpful to us. Look at this then. The branch is going to come forth, and he will save sinners. But turn over to chapter 11 in the same book, Isaiah chapter 11. And here this theme is picked up again. Isaiah chapter 11, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of the Lord and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with iniquity for the meek of the earth. he shall strike the earth with the rod of iron, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. And the chapter continues on talking about this. But I want to zero in for right now, just at that beginning part. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse. What is a shoot from the stump of Jesse? That's a son. That's a son from Jesse, according to the flesh, right? So Jesse's going to have a son. And yet, what did we already see about the branch? The branch in chapter 4, chapter 4 says, in that day, the branch of the Lord. That is a branch of Yahweh. So already in Isaiah, we see this branch of the Lord comes from Jesse, and we're seeing these two things pair together, but it keeps going. Let's turn to Jeremiah. Next prophet over canonically, Jeremiah chapter 23. We're looking at the branch as one avenue by which we can see both David, or sorry, David's son, according to the flesh, also being David's Lord, the Son of God. Jeremiah chapter 23, in verse 5, we read this. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch. And he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved. Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he shall be called, The Lord is our righteousness. Do you see that couple then? Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch. Okay, a son of David is coming, a descendant of David. What's his name gonna be? His name will be the Lord is our righteousness. Yahweh is our righteousness. Do you see that this is being brought together very clearly in the prophets? David's son is going to be David's Lord. It keeps going. Turn over to Zechariah then. Added to this picture of the branch then comes the filling out of this prophecy. Zechariah chapter three. And we're going to see that added to this branch is three offices that this king, this priest, this servant, is going to bear. So, Zechariah chapter 3, starting in verse 8 and in verse 9, we read this, Here now, O Joshua, the high priest, Now remember Joshua, a high priest, he hears this picture. Joshua in Hebrew is Jesus in Greek. And this is very symbolic happenings going on. Says, here now, oh Joshua, the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, For you are men who are assigned. Behold, I will bring forth my servant, the branch. For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the Lord of hosts. And I will remove the iniquity of the land in a single day. In that day, declares the Lord of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree. And I want to read also from Zechariah chapter 6 and verse 13. Chapter 6 and verse 13 says this. It is he who shall build the temple of the Lord, and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne. And there shall be a priest on his throne, and the council of peace shall be between them both. And as he's talking about this in this context, this is the branch you see in verse 12 there. It says, and say to him, thus says the Lord of hosts, behold, the man whose name is the branch, for he shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord. It is he who shall build the temple of the Lord, and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne, and there shall be a council between them. And so, taking those three things together, Zechariah fills out this prophecy and says, this branch shall be my servant, that's chapter three, this branch shall be royal, that's a king, and this branch shall be a priest, also in chapter six. So we have servant and priest and king, the offices of this branch who is going to be David's son and David's lord, the prophecy is abundantly clear, the Pharisees And the Sadducees and the crowds had no excuse. And just, well, I'll save that one for the end. So what's the, I guess the question then becomes, why? Why were the Pharisees not able to see this? Or why were they at least unwilling to answer this? And this brings us to our third point. So we've already talked about this is the great confession. And we talked about what is the aim of the question? Well, the aim of Jesus' question was to elicit this confession from the people that Jesus Christ is Lord. Now, I want to ask, what is the significance of that confession? What was it probing for? And that's very similar to asking the question, why could the Pharisees not answer it? Jesus knew the Pharisees would not answer it. He, knowing these things, probes and asks, not aimlessly, but truly he strikes, because Jesus is the master of the law. Jesus is the one who bears the authority to declare what God has truly said in his word. And so here we ask, what is the point of this question? And so first we see that this confession that Jesus Christ is Lord disarms the Pharisees' main objection to Jesus' ministry. This was the main weapon, the main thing that they had to discount, to undermine the ministry of Jesus. You see, Jesus came, healing the blind and the lame, and declaring himself to be the Son of God. It was abundantly clear. But the Jews sought to kill him all the more. Why? Because not only did he claim to be the Son of David, but he made himself out to be God. This is what the Gospel of John says. John chapter 5. We read this. John chapter 5 and verse 18, or thereabouts, says this. We'll all start in 16 here. Jesus said to her, go and call your husband. I'm on chapter 4, sorry. Verse 5, 18, here we go. This is right after he has made the man well at the pool, and they challenge his healing on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, my father is working until now, and I am working. And in verse 18, this is why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling himself God, his own father, making himself equal with God, calling God his own father, making himself equal with God. This was the main dart that the Pharisees had against Jesus. You see, they couldn't deny the miracles, and they couldn't deny the authority which Jesus had over the law, or at least in his ability to capture the crowds and to draw them, but they thought they could deny him because he was not God. If a man came to you today and told you, I am God, you would reject him, certainly. A dangerous man, a sinner, no man is God. But you see, the Christ was to be both David's son and David's Lord. So the Pharisees thought that this was their one weapon that they could use to undermine Christ. This actually was their primary indictment against them. Here is Jesus Christ, Son of God, Son of Man, standing before them, and they had no place for Jesus. So in the first count, Jesus undermines their main objection to his ministry by showing himself from Psalm 110 to be, or at least opening the door to the fact that the Christ is both God and Lord. We see that. Because in this section, Jesus doesn't explicitly come out and say, that Lord is me. But the implication is there. Jesus is saying, look, if you would have seen in the Old Testament that the Christ who was to come was to be David's son, but also David's Lord, then you would not reject the one who comes in power, claiming to be Christ, merely because he claims to be God. He disarms their main objection. Secondly, though, he shames his enemies. This is, in fact, what is happening right now is part of what the psalm is already predicting. He says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. It is that not what is happening at this very moment. The enemies of Christ come after him with these questions, these accusations, these snares to trap him, as we've seen in the last three segments. And now, Jesus comes and puts them to shame because they thought they could wield the law against Jesus, but actually the other way around, Jesus shows them that the law Evidence is that the Christ will be God, and they are ignorant of these things. Ignorant before the crowds. Their splendor, their prestige that they wanted to hold onto, the fear that they had for the crowds. Remember, that was the first thing that happened all the way back when they confronted Jesus in the temple. They couldn't make a reply because they feared the crowds, and yet it is Jesus who puts them to shame in front of the crowds for they had no answer for this question. So he disarms them, he shames them. Thirdly, he asks this question, or the significance of this is that it drives or propels reality or redemptive history. I struggle to know how to put this point, but the emphasis here is not only are the Pharisees disarmed, not only are they put to shame, but this confession that Jesus Christ is Lord drives forward into the eternal state, propels redemptive history. It's the driving momentum. One commentator, as I looked at the notes on Psalm 110, said this. When you think about the enemies of Christ being made his footstool, the idea of crushing your enemies beneath your feet, your mind ought to automatically go to Genesis 3.15, where the seed of the serpent was to come, and the serpent's head would be crushed, and the seed's heel would be bruised, right? So if we think about that commitment, he shall bruise your head and he shall bruise his heel and crush his head, if you will, that promise all the way at the beginning in Genesis 3.15 is that paradigm which the psalmist David here picks up when he says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. So he's saying, look, the son of David is going to be that crusher of Satan. He's going to be the one who triumphs over his enemies. And so already we're picking up this thrust, this confession, which is moving from the fall through Christ all the way into eternity. And to drive that home, I want us to finish, if you will, our little detour that we took as we looked at the branch. So the final passage I wanted to go to and show us this theme of the branch is all the way in Revelation chapter 22. Revelation chapter 22. We're talking about trajectory, the significance of this confession propelling us from Genesis all the way into eternity in Revelation. Revelation chapter 22, and it says this, in verse, I'm gonna start in verse, I'm going to start in verse 12. Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life. You hear that allusion, right? Genesis. and that they may enter the city by the gate. Outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, and the sexually immoral, and the murderers, and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright and morning star. That root, that is branch, if you will. It's the same picture, right? That root of David and that descendant of David, that root and branch. This is the great confession that propels us all the way in to eternity. And so with this in mind, we ask, why couldn't the Pharisees see this? Why couldn't they understand that the Christ was to be both the Son of David and Son of God? And I ask this question because they're not dumb. They were students of the law. Nevertheless, their hearts were hard, and they refused to see what the Scriptures had said. And so with this, we come to our fourth and concluding point. We'll linger on this for the rest of our time today. Jesus not only brings the great confession on the heels of the great commandment, he not only shows us the aim of the question, and how he wants to elicit this response from the Pharisees that Jesus is Christ and Lord. He not only shows us the significance of this confession by disarming the Pharisees, putting his enemies to shame, and propelling us into reality, Jesus bids us, number four, lift our eyes up off of this world. Jesus bids us lift our eyes today. So why did the Pharisees have no ability to see this? And this is the mistake that the Pharisees made countless times over and over again. They had a conceptual... idea of who the Christ would be. They expected one to come who would be the Messiah, one who would give them the land and their inheritance, but they did not see the higher and greater purpose for all that God had given them from Abraham through to Jesus. He had given them the laws and the precepts and the land and the temple and the worship and all of it to culminate in one person, in Jesus Christ, so that we might interpret and understand Jesus and what He propels us into. You can think of all of those things as driving our mind and affections onto the greater things. And this has been perhaps a subtle theme throughout our exploration of this section already. We think of the wedding feast and how the wedding, Jesus says, look, the Sadducees came and said, look, the law is against eternity because how can marriage on earth be like marriage in heaven? And Jesus says, no, there's no marriage in heaven. There's a greater feast in heaven. The kingdom of heaven is like one who gave a wedding feast. And so all throughout this, we can see that Jesus has been drawing these religious leaders and the people to lift their eyes up off of this Mount Jerusalem, this dwelling, and onto that greater temple. Jesus was the greater temple. Zion is the greater Jerusalem. And the salvation which Jesus brings is greater than the rest that Joshua gave them in the promised land. He is the greater word than what Moses delivered from Mount Sinai. So today, Jesus bids us lift our eyes. The Pharisees did not have a conception of the Christ that was shaped like God. They had a Christ who was man-shaped, but not a Christ who was God-shaped. They thought that Christ would come to redeem their land, to give them their inheritance then, but they did not think that the Savior would come to redeem them from sin. They did not realize that the law was there to indict them as we saw last week. The great commandment requires a great savior. It's the greatest commandment because it puts everyone to shame. And so with their failure to see the law as condemning, and their failure to see their need for a savior who would redeem, and their failure to realize that the Christ was not going to be merely a man, but he was going to be God, they failed to see Jesus for who he was. And we're shortly on the, we're on the precipice now as we would come to chapter 23 of the woes that condemns them for this very thing. The primary indictment against them is this theme of the Pharisees laying burdens upon people which they themselves are not willing to lift with their own finger because they thought of themselves as the priests standing between the people and God. Yeah, the people are sinful, but we are the priests. We have righteousness. Who is this Jesus? Why do we need him? They did not see themselves as under the law. They did not see themselves as needing a great savior. But this question then comes to us as well. We don't have merely a conceptual hole that the Christ would fill, we don't have that merely drawn by the prophets, but we have the reality, Christ has come, the word has been delivered to us to show us who Jesus is in truth, but we must ask, do we have that sort of Jesus ever before us? Are our eyes lifted up off of the things that so easily consume us onto those things which Christ would have us focus on? We confessed this sin together this morning, did we not? In Colossians chapter three where Paul says, you who have been raised with Christ, set your mind on things which are above where Christ is seated in the heavenly places. Jesus bids you lift your eyes this morning, brothers and sisters, off of what is merely temporal and what is passing away and onto what is eternal and what is sure. So I ask you, do you have a godless conception of Jesus at times? That's a common thing in our culture. I guarantee there are many of us sitting here today who have friends who are Christian, but they're Christian as perhaps cultural, conservative cultural capital, or in some kind of badge which says, yeah, I'm a good person, right? But Jesus says, no, you cannot think of me merely as a man. You must think of me as God, the one who redeems from sin, the one who has authority to forgive that infraction which you have committed against the Father. You see that whole nother level, that whole nother tier that Christianity is about. I ask you in your prayer life, oftentimes we can get a diagnosis of the work of the Spirit in our lives when we look at those things which we are most driven to pray for, what is most laid upon our hearts. Are you most often, most likely, most urgently to go to prayer to Jesus asking for merely the temporal things or also with the eternal? It's not either or. Jesus says, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins when he taught us to pray. Oftentimes we say, Lord, please help this sickness to go away. Help this part of my life to be better. Help these people to be happier. because our hearts are really perplexed and we're anxious about the outcomes of a voting ballot decision or the outcomes of the way our church rises and falls, ebbs and flows, or the outcomes of how our family life is going or how our relationships are going. And all of those things are given to you. They're gifts by God. God would have you use them for his purposes, but what are his purposes? that you would lift your eyes up off of those things onto eternal things. We want to do that not only for ourselves, but to one another. So yes, we pray for the benefit of the country and the city in which we live. We want justice to be done, but why? Because we want people to lift their eyes up onto Jesus, not merely because we want morality. We want our relationships to be good, but not merely so that our lives are easy, but so that Christ would be made known in them, that Christ would be seen in them. Not merely a Jesus who is a moral person, a good doer, but a Jesus who reconciles alien sinners. A Jesus who crushes his enemies but redeems those who are his. A Jesus who upholds the law in all its details and forgives every single sin. Jesus bids us lift our eyes this morning. And these microcosms of redemptive history ought to echo into all the world for us. Just as the Israelites were given a land so that they might see the greater one to come, so also we here walk on this world and all things are given that we might see that eternal heaven and earth to come. You can look at a tree and it's, perhaps the girth at its base catches your attention, but as you look up to its majesty and the branches, your eyes are drawn up to realize, look, even the trees grow up and bear their fruit to reveal the glory of God. Even little things like kids' spills and sickness and cold and Lots of messes as we're all going through various sicknesses right now are meant to draw our minds up to that new heaven and that new earth where righteousness dwells, where there will be no sickness, there will be no sorrow. Each one an opportunity for us to cast our faith upon Christ because in that moment, Jesus bids you lift your eyes to him. He calls you to come to Him in the moment of frustration, in the moment of anxiety, when we're perplexed about the things that we are often encumbered by, Jesus says, there is something greater at work here in this world, and it is the redemption of sinners, it is the glory of God, it is the eternity to which you have been called. You who have been raised with Christ, set your affections on Him, set your mind on Him. because your life is hidden with Christ in God. This is our call together, brothers and sisters. Jesus, as you asked this probing question to your enemies, and as they might have given this confession upon which the world turns, You so draw us. You have elicited from us this confession, and not by our own strength, but in the Spirit, Lord, we say it's because Jesus is the Christ, and the Christ was not merely David's son, but also David's Lord. You are the one who will come and reign. You are the one who will crush Satan and sin under your feet. You are the one who has redeemed us through the judgment which you bore on the cross. Lord, teach us to lift our eyes because we are, in many ways, fixed on what is passing away. And when we do this, Lord, we are drugged down to wallow in what is a dead end. Lord, there's a trajectory to all creation, an anticipation and a hope set before us. Teach these things to our hearts, I pray in your name, amen.