Today our sermon is going to be also another summation of the Psalms, so you can have your scriptures ready. We actually will have several scriptures to look at here. Today we want to see the majesty of the Messiah as the Psalms sing of our King. In the last couple of Lord's Days, as we've contemplated what God has been revealing through the Psalms and enculturating us into. We've seen that Jesus is the King of whom the Psalms sing. And the Psalms are designed to train our hearts to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. His kingdom is a righteous kingdom that brings salvation, we saw last week. And today, we have just a simple objective, which is to now contemplate the presentation of this King in the Psalms, to see the King in his beauty. We're gonna look at the portrait of the Messiah painted in these songs. Now we're not gonna attempt to be exhaustive in any way, but rather we're going to take some just key messianic Psalms cited directly in the New Testament in order to feast our hearts on the glory of our King. I believe this is especially fitting for us during this Advent season, but of course all the time as well. I want to present to you today from the Psalms simply five portraits of our Messiah so that we can look on him with love. The first portrait is our majestic Messiah is the King of David's line. He's the King of David's line. In his climactic confrontation with the Pharisees, You're all familiar with the Pharisees, those scholars and leaders of Jesus's day, who should have been religious leaders for the people to see their Messiah, but did not. In his conflict with the Pharisees, shortly before his crucifixion, Jesus returned their challenging questions to him with a question to them. What do you think about the Christ? That is the word, the Messiah. What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he? Well, knowing their Old Testaments well, the Pharisees confidently responded, the son of David. And that is correct, as it was widely understood even in Jesus's day. God had made this very clear when he promised David When your days are fulfilled to walk with your fathers, I will raise up your seed, your offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for me and I will establish his throne forever. There was going to be an anointed king from the line of David who would come. This is widely understood. This was the promise, that covenant that God made with David that undergirded all that. And it's that very promise that provides the setting or the context for the entire book of Psalms. It supplies the rationale in which every single Psalm functions. In fact, as we sing the Psalms, that promise that God made to David provides the context, the rationale for our own lives. Because that very promise from God is the rationale for all of human history and why it works the way it does. Psalm 2 sings of the fulfillment of this promise as it asks the question why the nations rage, why the people's plot, why the kings of the earth attempt to throw off the Lord's, the rule of the Lord's anointed king. And it pronounces triumphantly, he who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury. As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. pardon me, I will tell the decree. The Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." The psalm recounts for us a saying of the Lord, something he said at some point that he has set his king on his holy hill of Zion. It's interesting to consider that even when this psalm was written, when it was penned, it reflects on the Lord saying this in the past, and yet the Messiah had not yet come. This was something the Lord decreed, a certain Lord determined in His infinite and wise plan from the beginning. And so that's why as we then hear the voice of this anointed King start to speak in the psalm, He tells of the decree. I'm going to speak of this decree that the Lord has made. The Lord has said to me, you are my son. Today, I have begotten you. This Psalm, in fact, that verse that I just read there, Psalm 2-7, became a linchpin in the gospel message of the apostles. Think about it today when you go and proclaim the good news to other people. is at the heart of your message. The Lord said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you. We don't often think that way today, but you notice as the apostles preach the gospel, they quote this and they do it repeatedly. Pardon me. As Paul preached to the Jews in Antioch of Pisidia, he showed that Jesus is the fulfillment of what God promised to the fathers. He says this, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart who will do all my will. By the way, the apostle Paul is citing Psalm 89 in that quote. Of this man's seed or his offspring, God has brought to Israel a savior, Jesus, as he promised. And so Paul tells the story of Jesus's coming, of his crucifixion, of his resurrection, And after telling that story, he concludes, and we bring you the good news, that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us, their children, by raising Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm. And by the way, I think this is, if memory serves me correctly, the only place in the entire New Testament where the author actually quotes the exact Psalm he's quoting from. So he tells you where I'm getting this. As he says in the second Psalm, You are my son. Today, I have begotten you. This declaration, this promise is the key to understanding who Jesus is. We have to see Jesus in this light. You see, when you are singing of Jesus, you are singing of the king of the world. You are singing of the king who inherits and fulfills all the promises that God gave to David. And when I say Jesus is the king of the world, and that we sing of this today in the Psalms, I mean that in as actual a way as you can possibly be. Not just Jesus is a potential king, or he could be a king, or even that one day he will be a king, but that he is the king. that God has in his declaration and then through Christ's coming and his resurrection and ascension to glory, established him as the king of the entire world. And that that is good news. We need that. You see, the anointed one is the king that was promised that would bring about this kingdom of peace. You look around today, our political life provides abundant testimony to our need for a king to reign in righteousness. Can you not agree with me on that? We need someone who can actually establish true human community, a just and a peaceful society. We long for that. Humans fight over that. We have public squabbles called elections sometimes in our nation. And they're all supposed to be providing a just and peaceful society for us. But no matter how hard we try as humans, we find that we are lacking. Somebody else is going to have to come here. Is there really anybody? Is there anybody that is that glorious that can establish a just and human society? The portrait we're seeing here painted in the Psalms is that Jesus is this king because he is the king of David's line. Therefore, Jesus is beautiful in our eyes. When we begin to see this portrait of him painted in the Psalms, we begin to see his glory and how significant that glory is for our lives. Let me show you another portrait of the Messiah in the Psalms. Our majestic Messiah is man and God. Man and God. As a descendant of David, we would expect this Messiah to be a man, Right? And yet I don't think we should gloss over to that point too quickly, that he is a man. You see, Hebrews chapter two, verses six through eight, cites Psalm eight, verses four through six, to demonstrate that God has subjected the whole world and even the world to come to man and not to angels. Pardon me. Look over there with me at this text, Hebrews 2, over in the New Testament. It says in Hebrews 2, verse 5, now it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere. He doesn't give us the reference, but we know where this is from. What is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet. Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. Pardon me. Jesus Christ, is the one who has had all things subjected to him, specifically as a man. One of the glories we look at as we see our Messiah and see his beauty is that he is truly and fully a man, truly and fully one of us, and he achieves all that the man was meant to be. People today are always infatuated with heroes of whatever kind. athletic heroes, entertainment heroes, military heroes. We get infatuated with heroes. We do that because we see in these heroic figures some kind of a glimpse of what we wish we could be. Some kind of a glimpse of glory in the flesh, achieving great things, conquering obstacles, overcoming all things. And so we tend to adulate heroes. But there is no hero like the humble Lord Jesus Christ, who personally embodies everything man was meant to be. And we begin to see this, we begin to see he truly is beautiful in our eyes. And yet when we see the Messiah portrayed for us in the Psalms, we begin to realize that we are seeing somebody who is more than a man. When we see Jesus, at the same time that we see man, we are seeing God. Let's return to Jesus' exchange with the Pharisees that I talked about a moment ago. After their acknowledgement that Christ is David's son, Jesus then asked 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? Now at that question, the Pharisees' confidence evaporated. They didn't want to face up to where this line of inquiry was going. We don't want to have to answer that question. But the question still stands, and it can't be avoided. The unavoidable implication is that the Messiah, this son of David, is actually greater than David. He is someone who supersedes David, or anything that David could ever be. He would sit, in fact it says, in the place of authority at the right hand of the Lord, Yahweh. And to prove that, Jesus has cited Psalm 110. Psalm 110. In case there then was any doubt about the divinity of this Messiah, Psalm 45 verse six says of this king, your throne, speaking to this king, is beautiful. Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness." This man who is a king of the line of David is here called God. Hebrews 1.8 cites that very verse. Psalm 45, six, and says that this is speaking specifically of the son. In some amazing way, this anointed king is both man and God. What we're beginning to see as we look at this portrait of the Messiah is that he is the embodiment of true beauty. Everything a man was meant to be, because ultimately he's revealing the beauty of God. Let me show you another portrait of the Messiah from the Psalms. Our majestic Messiah is the suffering servant. Even though this anointed king in the Psalms is a great king, and of course, indeed, in some mysterious way, God, he is also a suffering servant in the Psalms. He is a king, yes. He has a mission from God to establish his righteous rule. But over and over again, we see evil forces hate him. They lie and they slander and they deceive. They devour the righteous. They attempt to destroy his good kingdom, do everything in their power to thwart his good reign. These powerful principalities and powers attack him, but he refuses to turn from his saving mission. In fact, he is willing to identify, so identify with his people that take refuge in him, that he takes on himself their sufferings, and he defends them. Though this is throughout the Psalms, nowhere is this more poignant than in Psalm 22. Pardon me. Psalm 22, verse one. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from the words of my groaning? Perhaps the most horrible statement a man could ever utter. But the horror of this statement found its fulfillment in the greatest crime in all of human history, when the spotless lamb of God hung in shame on the bloody cross. Because those were his words. all the suffering that is even represented in this room right now, he was taking. Not because he wasn't a great king, but precisely because he's a king that's that great, that will do that for his people. And I think here we see an aspect of his beauty and his glory that we might have missed looking at him naturally. When we look at the Messiah through merely human eyes, we often tend to be like the people confess in Isaiah 53. We did not see his beauty. We did not see his glory. But when we see him for who he is, we see that he's all the more lovely for it. because his suffering reveals a love that is beyond what we can imagine. When we realize, again, as Isaiah 53 puts it, that he was wounded for our transgressions, we know then that we have an anointed king that we can not only submit to, but truly love. This is a king who loves. like no love we've ever seen, and calls us, his people, into that love to share in it. Again, we can look around in our society today and see how we are crying out for someone, somehow, to bear our griefs and carry our sorrows. I believe, just like our political system cries out that we need a king, Our medical industrial complex is a streaming testimony to how much we need someone to bear our griefs and carry our sorrows. We have more drugs available to help us than any human civilization in history. And somehow we can't deal with our sorrows. We can't bear our sufferings. Somebody is going to have to save us. Our criminal justice system, or the lack thereof, is shouting out that we need someone who can take our sufferings and make them right. Pardon me. And here's the portrait put before you today. When you sing the Psalms, you are seeing a Messiah, a majestic Messiah, who suffers with us. in order to deliver us from suffering. He is beautiful in our eyes. That leads me to the fourth portrait here of our majestic Messiah, and that is He is the resurrected Savior. Speaking of His death on the cross, of course, leads right into this aspect, a reason we love the Messiah. Not only did He suffer and die, the Psalms sing that He overcame death. When Peter preached to the Jews on the day of Pentecost, he proclaimed this, and you can turn with me to Acts chapter two, if you want to read it for yourself. Pardon me, Acts chapter two, beginning at verse 22. Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know, This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. And then what does Peter do? He cites Psalm 16. For David says concerning him, that is concerning Jesus, this very one who's been crucified and that God raised from the dead, I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also will dwell in hope, for you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your Holy One see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life. You will make me full of gladness in your presence. That's a direct quote from Psalm 16. Peter is saying, what was David ultimately singing about here when he sang this song? What is he calling us to participate in here? Who is singing? This is your Messiah. Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb was with us to this day, being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh seek corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Pardon me. We are bearing witness, when we tell the good news to other people, we are bearing witness that our Messiah is a resurrected Messiah. We love him for that very reason. You see, our awe at this great king just continues to increase as we look at these portraits of him in the Psalms. We begin to see how wonderful he is in his exaltation, how amazing he is in his humiliation. And yet, how good he is even in overcoming that and providing life. He is beautiful in our eyes. And so I want to sum up these portraits of the majesty of our Messiah with one psalm that we have already touched on, and that's Psalm 45, if you would turn back there. Psalm 45. For I think this portrait expresses the only honest response of our hearts to the revelation of this majestic Messiah. My heart overflows with a pleasing theme. I address my verses to the King. My tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe. So we gaze on our Messiah, and what do we say? You are the most beautiful, the most handsome of the sons of men. Grace is poured upon your lips. Therefore, God has blessed you forever. You are absolutely beautiful. And what do we see in this Messiah that brings forth this overflow of praise? We see that he is a victorious bridegroom. And that's the last portrait, a victorious bridegroom. Gird your sword on your thigh, oh mighty one, a mighty warrior. In your splendor and majesty, in your majesty ride out victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness. Let your right hand teach you awesome deeds. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies. The peoples fall under you. Your throne, oh God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness. Beyond your companions, your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From ivory palaces, stringed instruments make you glad. Daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor. At your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir. Is it any surprise now that the author of Hebrews cites this psalm? Psalm 45, verse six. Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness. Here is the God-man, the anointed king of the line of David, having suffered on behalf of his people, having given himself entirely for them, now being raised from the dead, achieving his glorious kingdom. He wins. He defeats all of his enemies. That makes him glorious, right? That shows what a great king he is, as his right hand, as it puts it here, teaches him awesome deeds. He demonstrates everything of who he is and what he can do. And having achieved that kingdom, then what does he do? Well, of course, what does every fairy tale tell him that he should do? He takes a bride, right? He takes his love and brings her to share in his glory that he has achieved. Here, oh daughter, and consider and incline your ear. Forget your people and your father's house, and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your lord, bow to him. The people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts, the richest of the people. All glorious is the princess in her chamber, with robes interwoven with gold. In many colored robes, she is led to the king, with her virgin companions following behind her. With joy and gladness, they are led along as they enter the palace of the king. inducts his bride into all of his glory. And that makes him all the more glorious. You see, this is a king who with all of his glory, what does he do with all of his glory? He shares it, because he is love. He gives it, he brings his bride into it. We love our Messiah because he is a victorious bridegroom, God and man united in love forever. This is beautiful. Folks, if you see with the eyes of faith the portraits that the Psalms are presenting to you as you're singing these songs, you should be learning to love your Messiah. You should be getting to see the way he works in all of history to manifest his glory to yes, even our poor human perception. You should see Him drawing out your heart to love Him in return when you realize that in the church, you are His bride, that He is doing all this for you, that He is achieving this victory and achieving this glory precisely to bring you into it, to share it with you. And that makes Him all the more glorious because He is love. This is the fulfillment of life. And so, as you look around in this world today, if you see beauty anywhere, and I know you're a human, and I know you do see beauty, and I know you respond to it, but if you see beauty anywhere, do you know why that's there? Do you know what it's supposed to be doing for you? It's supposed to be, if you will, triggering a little glimpse into who your Messiah is and what he's accomplishing. It's supposed to be drawing your heart out to love him. And so I simply want to ask today, who do you say that Jesus is? Jesus asked the Pharisees, who is this Christ? Who do you say he is? And then do you delight in him? The Psalms sing the whole history of the Messiah before he even came. The Psalms are predicated upon his person and his work. In one sense, you might ask yourself today, why sing? Why sing at all if Jesus is not the Messiah? But Jesus is God's anointed king and he is beautiful. There is no one like him. or to put it in the words of Revelation, he is worthy to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. So my simple charge to you today would be, let us give it to him at this Advent season and always. If that is your desire, would you confess together today as God's people, his bride, Hallelujah, Jesus is Lord. Let's do it together. Hallelujah, Jesus is Lord. Let's look to Him in prayer.