Scripture Reading
Let me turn in your Bibles to Psalm 45. Psalm 45. I alluded to this psalm this morning and I figured it would be a good thing to look at this psalm in more detail tonight by way of some extended application of our message this morning. God the Father said of the Lord Jesus Christ, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.
To that end, God's people should be well pleased with the Lord Jesus. Those who have not come to Christ ought to be well pleased with the Lord Jesus and believe on him for the salvation of their souls. Well, Psalm 45 is a psalm written to celebrate the beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'll pick up reading in verse one to the chief musician set to the lilies, a contemplation of the sons of Korah.
A song of love. My heart is overflowing with a good theme. I recite my composition concerning the king. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.
You are fairer than the sons of men. Grace is poured upon your lips. Therefore, God has blessed you forever. Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one, with your glory and your majesty.
And in your majesty, ride prosperously because of truth, humility and righteousness. And your right hand shall teach you awesome things. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies. The peoples fall under you.
Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. You love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you. with the oil of gladness more than your companions.
All your garments are scented with myrrh and aloes and cashew out of the ivory palaces by which they have made you glad. King's daughters are among your honorable men. At your right hand stands the queen in gold from Ophir. Listen, O daughter, consider and incline your ear.
Forget your own people also in your father's house. So the king will greatly desire your beauty. Because he is your Lord, worship him and the daughter of Tyre will come with a gift. The rich among the people will seek your favor.
The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace. Her clothing is woven with gold. She shall be brought to the king in robes of many colors. The virgins, her companions who follow her, shall be brought to you with gladness and rejoicing.
They shall be brought. They shall enter the king's palace. Instead of your father shall be your sons, whom you shall make princes in all the earth. I will make your name to be remembered in all generations.
Therefore, the people shall praise you forever and ever. Amen. Let us pray.
Opening Prayer
Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the testimony of the psalmist to our beloved Lord Jesus. We thank you that he is indeed fairer than the sons of men, that he is altogether lovely and chief among ten thousand. God help us to appreciate him even more as we look at this psalm tonight, and we ask in his most blessed name, Amen.
Introduction
Well, I will refer to C.H. Spurgeon throughout the message this evening. He has a wonderful three-volume, or at least it's published in three volumes, commentary on the psalms. It's called The Treasury of David.
If you don't have that, it's a good one to get. I can also find it online. But as well, he speaks of the subject of the psalm. Who is the psalmist writing about?
He writes, Some here see Solomon and Pharaoh's daughter only. They are short-sighted. Others see both Solomon and Christ. They are cross-eyed, well-focused, spiritualized, see here Jesus only.
We have divine commentary, ultimately, and interpretation in Hebrews 1, verse 8, that this psalm is, in fact, about the Lord of glory, even Jesus Christ, our Savior. So let us look at four things, or four observations, with reference to this psalm. First, the beauty of the Savior stated, verses 1 and 2. Secondly, we'll notice the beauty of the Savior in his person.
Thirdly, the beauty of the Savior in His attributes or perfections, and fourthly, the beauty of the Savior in His works. Very often when theologians discuss the Lord Jesus, they break down that discussion into His person, who He is as God-man, and into His works. what he accomplishes in terms of his redemptive activity. So, that's sort of the framework that we're approaching this. So, the beauty stated, the beauty of the Savior in his person, the beauty of the Savior in his attributes, and then, fourthly, the beauty of the Savior in his works.
The Beauty of the Savior Stated
Notice, first, the intention of the poet. He says, my heart is overflowing with a good theme. Again, that's how we ought to study the Scripture. We ought to want to fuel our hearts in such a way that it overflows in praise and adoration to our great and living God.
We ought to be so filled with the knowledge of Holy Scripture that we can't help but praise the Lord Jesus. That it would be overflowing, that it would be coming out, that it would be venting forth. He says, I recite my composition concerning the king. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.
Spurgeon says it is a sad thing when the heart is cold with good matter. It is a sad thing when the heart is cold with good matter. We have good matter. And, unfortunately, very often we have cold hearts.
He says it is worse when it is warm with bad matter. In other words, heretics oftentimes evidence a great zeal. But he goes on to say it is incomparably well when a warm heart and good matter meet together. That ought to be our prayer with reference to the truth of Christianity.
The overflowing heart here could also be translated boils or bubbles up. It denotes the language of the heart, full and ready for utterance. It's like that soup on the stove. If you leave it unattended, what happens?
It bubbles up. It ultimately bubbles over. That's the picture of God. He is bubbling over with joy in terms of his meditation and his contemplation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
His heart was so warm and so filled that he could not contain it. He takes a pen and he writes down these meditations concerning the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. His theme is indicated here in verse two. He says, You are fairer than the sons of men.
Grace is poured upon your lips. Therefore, God has blessed you forever. The Hebrew word here is double. Literally, it would be you are fairer Or, you are beautiful, beautiful.
One lexicon describes it as, you are the fairest, or thou art more beautiful than. He is speaking superlatively. He is speaking about the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. His heart cannot contain itself.
He takes his pen to paper and he writes about the fairest Lord Jesus Christ. Again, Spurgeon says Jesus is so emphatically lovely that words must be doubled, strained, yea, exhausted before he can be described. You'll see that with the Apostle Paul. Sometimes you study his particular epistles and you look at some of the better commentaries and they say this word was never used in a previous place.
It's as if the apostle coined the word so that he could speak of the glory of Jesus Christ. Paul puts prepositions together in such a way that he can describe super abounding grace. I mean, it's pretty amazing when your God is so good that you have to start stringing together words in your language to begin to do justice to just how glorious he is. That's the thrust here.
That's the flow here. That's the theme. You are fairer than the sons of men, just like that pronouncement from that voice out of heaven. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.
Spurgeon goes on to say, among the children of men, many have through grace been lovely in character, yet they have each had a flaw. But in Jesus, we behold every feature of a perfect character in harmonious proportion. That's the theme of the psalmist. Now,
Beauty of the Savior in His Person
let's notice, secondly, the beauty of the Savior in his person. Describes Jesus as both man and God. What we call the theanthropic nature of our Lord Jesus.
The Humanity of Christ
He is God and man. Here first, the humanity is stressed. Notice in verse seven, you love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions.
As the man Christ Jesus, God, the Father, was his God. As we trace through the gospel accounts, we see evidence of his genuine humanity. We need one to identify with us completely, totally, and absolutely. And Christ does that.
He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He weeps at the gravesite of Lazarus. He eats. He's thirsty.
He sleeps. Christ is man. Christ is blessed humanity. Christ is the very picture of what we ought to be.
And, of course, we have fallen short. That's why God sent him into this world, to fulfill all righteousness. The blessed man, Christ Jesus. But it doesn't stop there.
The Deity of Christ
He is also God. He is God. Notice in verse 6, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The psalmist is writing here of one who is deity.
It's an amazing feat that we have both God and man in one person. That's the beauty and the uniqueness of our Lord Jesus. He is one person in two natures, distinct and blessed. He is God, he is man, and the psalmist here applies this language to his Savior.
We see this, as I've already mentioned, in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 8. It is applied to Christ with reference to his deity. Spurgeon again said the psalmist cannot restrain his adoration. You see, this ought to be the point.
This is what I'm hoping that we will see. I know it's late, or not late in terms of, you know, it's midnight, but we're probably all tired. It's the second service of the day. We heard about Jesus this morning.
We're going to hear about Jesus again tonight. The point is, we need to become more like the psalmists. Our hearts need to be filled with the fire of good doctrine, that good matter. And our hearts warmed with that good matter ought to vent it out in praise and worship.
We ought to be faithful witnesses. That's what I think is going on later in the song. He is effectively witnessing. We see that in the Song of Solomon as well.
When the bridegroom, or when the bride rather, describes the bridegroom after highlighting his beauty and his glory and his majesty. Do you know what the daughters of Jerusalem say? Where is your beloved that we might find him, too? What's the implication that as Christian witnesses in the manner in which we speak well of our Jesus, hopefully others will say, where is this Jesus that I may find him, too?
We need to bear forth that hope. We need to bear forth that joy. Very often, as Christians, we look like the most miserable lot on the face of the earth. There are trials.
There are tribulations. There are miseries. There are difficulties. But brethren, let us pray to God that we would have something of this heart overflowing with a good theme, that our tongue would be the pen of a ready writer, that we would be prepared to ascribe glory and honor to our blessed Redeemer.
Spurgeon says that the psalmist cannot restrain his adoration. His enlightened eye sees in the royal husband of the church. God. God to be adored.
God reigning. God reigning everlastingly. Blessed sight. Blind are the eyes that cannot see God in Christ Jesus.
Athanasius and Propositional Truth
Athanasius used this verse as a description of the deity of Jesus Christ. Remember Athanasius? Back in the church history, two A's fought over the deity of Christ. One A was Arius, and the other was Athanasius.
Arius has his subjects today. Arius has his followers today. Arius has his disciples. They happen to be on just about every corner in Chilliwack.
They are Jehovah's Witnesses. Arius taught that Jesus was created. Arius thought that Jesus was a creature. Arius thought that Jesus, if anything, was a little G-God, but he wasn't Almighty God.
You'll hear that from Arius' followers today. Athanasius went to Psalm 45. Athanasius went to Hebrews 1, verse 8, to show that, in fact, Jesus Christ was indeed Almighty God. I love what John Piper says concerning this.
He says what was clear to Athanasius was that propositions about Christ carried convictions that could send you to heaven or to hell. Just try to fill in some of the white space in this following quote. Piper is reacting against what's called the emerging church of the emergent church. Those who would denounce propositional revelation for the experience.
Brethren, we need propositional revelation to lay our hearts upon. It is through propositional revelation we learn of this God-man and salvation wrought by him. Without propositional revelation, we are dead in our trespasses and sins. The biblical pattern is, believe the propositional revelation, and then the experience follows.
We don't sacrifice revelation in search of the mystical. We don't sacrifice the revelation in search of the experience, which, unfortunately, many today do. He goes on to say, there were propositions like, there was a time when the Son of God was not. This is an Arian proposition.
And he was not before he was made. And the Son of God is created. Those were the things that Athanasius was fighting against. He goes on to say, Piper does, these propositions were strictly damnable.
It's important that we get that you deny the truth of Psalm 45 verse six or Hebrews one verse eight. And it is damnable. You and I can be wrong and are wrong in a whole bunch of theological matters. Right.
Oh, not me, brother, I like the 1689 that we're all wrong. We're all somewhere, got something big time. Hopefully when it's pointed out to us, we're meant enough to repent and forsake it and take the right path. But you cannot be wrong on certain truths in the scripture.
You cannot miss who Jesus is. You cannot miss who God is in terms of triune. You cannot miss salvation by grace through faith. You cannot miss certain truths or else you will be lost in your sin.
So Piper said, these propositions were strictly damnable. If they were spread and believed, they would damn the souls which embraced them, and therefore Athanasius labored with all his might to formulate propositions that would conform to reality and lead the soul to faith and worship and heaven. You see, sometimes you read throughout the history of the church, or you take a document like our London Baptist Confession, modeled strictly or modeled very faithfully with the Westminster Confession, and there is precision there. There is economy, there is theological formulation that at times we go, what's the big deal?
The big deal is, this is the truth of God. And if we are going to seek to summarize that truth, we must labor to summarize it faithfully. Because souls hang in the balance. Believing error, believing heresy, believing false doctrine, lands a soul in hell.
And especially like a doctrine of the Trinity, for instance. Do a bit of research in that and just see how at times language and words and things are used and described and defined. Why? So that we can hedge in the truth of Holy Scripture.
Piper goes on to say, I believe Athanasius would have abominated with Tyr's the contemporary call for depropositionalizing. And depropositionalizing simply means what I've already alluded to. We don't need the propositions of Revelation. Just give us Jesus.
We don't need the propositions of Scripture. Just give us experience. Well, you see, without those propositions, we must ask the question, which Jesus are you experiencing? Which Jesus do you have?
Not everybody who preaches Jesus is necessarily preaching the Jesus of redemptive salvation or redemptive history. He goes on to say. That you hear the so-called reformists and the emerging church, younger evangelicals, post fundamentalists, post foundationalists, post propositionalists and post evangelicals. That's a whole lot of big verbiage there, but the point is simply this.
These are the things making their ways within evangelical and unfortunately reformed churches. There's a move away from propositional truth to the experience. He is saying that Athanasius would have abominated this with tears. He said, I think he would have said our young people in Alexandria die for the truth of propositions about Christ.
What are your young people die for? And if the answer came back, we die for Christ, not propositions about Christ. I think he would have said, that's what Arius says. So which Christ will you die for?
I appreciate that quote because it comes from Piper. It's a beautiful statement of the necessity for propositional revelation. Psalm 45, verse 6, is just one of those. Hebrews 1, 8 is just one of those.
It is an application of the name Theos or God to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the God-man. That is the beauty of the Savior in His person. There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
He satisfies the requirements for God. He appeals or He associates and identifies and represents His people. He is everything a sinner needs in terms of His person.
Beauty of the Savior in His Attributes
Thirdly, look at the beauty of the Savior and His attributes. Or his perfections, we might say. These are things that we attribute to Christ. Things that make him glorious and beautiful.
Christ Is Eloquent and Blessed
Notice that he is eloquent. He is eloquent. You are fairer than the sons of men. Verse two.
Grace is poured upon your lips. He spoke like never a man spoke before. Remember at the very end of the Sermon on the Mount, what happened within the crowd? They were amazed.
He taught not like others. He taught not like the rabbis and the scribes of his day, but rather he taught as one having authority. Do you realize when we hear the word of Christ, we hear the one who has absolute authority, is eloquent, revealed in the propositions, revealed in the invitations, revealed in the gospel, revealed in his blessed statements concerning life everlasting. Luke 4.
I alluded to that this morning. Jesus is in a synagogue in Nazareth. He takes the scroll. He reads Isaiah 61.
He hands the scroll back to the attendant. And he says, today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. What happens? The people marvel at the words that drip from his mouth.
And then he begins to speak about election. And then they want to throw him off a hill. Kind of an interesting juxtaposition there, right? They're like, wow, we love what he has to say.
We love those blessed honey words that are dropping from his lips. And then he begins to speak of judgment upon Israel. He alludes to Elisha, the widow that he visited, and they understand what he is getting at. So they want to throw him off of a hill. kind of an interesting thing.
Don't be surprised if in your gospel witness at times people are going, wow, that's pretty amazing, the way and the manner in which you're speaking that. That's beautiful what you say. And then you put a thumb on their particular sin and they get really upset. You see, they'll like it as long as you sound like a beautiful instrument that doesn't affect them personally.
But as you begin to apply the implications of the gospel, that's what gets people upset. That Jesus is eloquent. Secondly, he is blessed of God. It says that in verse 2.
Therefore, God has blessed you forever. That's a great statement, isn't it? Lord, bless me, bless my family, bless my friends, bless our local church. This is a standing blessing.
God has blessed his son forever. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. I have set my blessing on him forever. What does blessing mean?
Blessing in one sense means happy. It's a happy Lord, a happy Savior, who for the joy that was set before him. Now, of course, he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief on this side of glory. We get this idea that Jesus is up there in heaven, just sort of agonizing.
He's a thrilled Savior. All the things described with reference to the fruits of the Spirit are true of all three persons of the triune God. He's joyful. In 1 Timothy, the Apostle Paul speaks of the blessed God, the happy God.
We must not forget that.
Christ Is Mighty, Glorious, and Majestic
Thirdly, an attribute that we ought to appreciate is that he is mighty. Verse 3, gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one. Why is Jesus our king or why do we need a king? We need defense.
We need protection. And this mighty one is able to deliver. I truly believe that this is the passage or at least some of the backdrop for what we find in Revelation 19. When we have that view of Christ there in verses 11 to 16, he's riding on this white horse.
He rides prosperously because of truth, humility, and righteousness. He wages war on behalf of his people. He is our defender. He is our redeemer.
He is our protector. He is our friend. The omnipotence of Christ, the almighty power of Christ, the fact that he is able to save to the uttermost all who draw near unto God through him. Fourthly, He is glorious.
He is glorious. That's what we find there in verse 3. With your glory and your majesty. What is glory?
You know, we talk a lot about that, don't we? To the praise and the glory of His grace. For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things to whom be glory now and forever. Amen.
Have you ever stopped and thought, why should I want this to be the case? this idea of glory. I think glory speaks of at least two things. Position. He's exalted to the right hand of God Most High.
He's in the place of absolute sovereignty and royal authority. That is glorious. Position and prestige. He is altogether lovely and chief among 10,000.
It's interesting in Isaiah, the Prophet, 42, 8 and 48, 11. God the Father says in my glory, I will not share with another. And yet the apostle Peter can speak of Jesus being glorified. The New Testament speaks of Jesus being glorified.
How could that ever be the case? Unless there is unity of person. Unless there is identity. Unless, as Jesus said, I and my Father are one.
Fifthly, Jesus is majestic. That's what he says in verse three. With your glory and your majesty. You want to get a view of the majesty of Christ?
If not right now, sometime this week, turn to Isaiah, the prophet, chapter six. In the year the king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. I saw the Lord exalted. I saw the train of his robe fill the temple.
You know, that just speaks of majesty. You know, they talk about a bride on the day of her wedding. She's got the thunder. She's got the thunder.
She is decked out. She looks beautiful. She has the majesty in that particular arena. And, well, it should be.
She's got that train of her robe that oftentimes attendants need to pick up so that they don't knock things down, so that they don't trip and fall. That's what the prophet says. I saw the train of his robe filling the entirety of the temple. What's he trying to highlight for you?
Is he trying to get you to say, wow, that's kind of a cool train of his robe? No, he wants you to go, he's majestic. He's awesome. He's glorious.
He's beautiful. My heart is so full right now, I have to praise and worship. You read that in Isaiah 6 and you hear the antipodal praise of those angels crying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. Join them.
Pray that with them. Participate alongside of them. If angels who have to cover their faces say this in the presence of the glorified Jesus, certainly we, as redeemed sinners, should say the same thing. He is majestic.
Christ Is Righteous
Sixthly, he is righteous. Verses four, six, and seven. He is righteous. That is blessed.
Christ is our righteousness. He is holy, harmless, and undefiled. As we saw this morning, he fulfills all righteousness for the sake of his people. By one man's obedience, so the many are constituted as righteous.
That's a better translation than what is said in the New King James. The many are made righteous. The many are made righteous has the idea of transformation of life, transformation of character, transformation of our way of living. That happens in sanctification, but Romans 5.19 is about justification.
We are constituted righteous through that one man's act of obedience. The entirety of his life is characterized as righteousness. So, those are just six attributes or perfections of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then,
Beauty of the Savior in His Works
fourthly and finally, the beauty of the Savior in his works. He wages war. Isn't that what the text said? And in your majesty ride prosperously because of truth, humility and righteousness.
Isn't that what we see depicted there in Revelation 19? Who is Jesus at war with? Well, in Revelation 19, it's the beast and the false prophet, whom he destroys, by the way, just like that. You know, we get so into this beast and this false prophet.
We spend countless hours and days and times and books and charts and conferences to try to figure out who this beast and false prophet are. Do you know that their disposal is recorded in about two verses? That's it. It's done.
He kills them. He destroys them. He throws them into the lake of fire. The beast and the false prophet aren't the stars of the book of Revelation.
Jesus is. The fact that he disposes of them so quickly just highlights this truth of what the Psalter is stating here. And in your majesty, ride prosperously because of truth, humility, and righteousness. Not only the beast and the false prophet, he's at war with our sin.
He sends the spirit. He supplies what we need. He is in the business of transforming his people by the spirit, in the work of sanctification. Our Lord Jesus deals graciously and gloriously with us, and he is engaged in a war designed to advance his glorious kingdom.
That is what we need to remember. I love what Dale Ralph Davis says concerning this king. He says the popular image of Jesus as that he is not only kind and tender, but also soft and prissy. We need this.
You know, you've got this idea of Jesus, right? He's the soft, tender, prissy savior that sort of just dances around Palestine and just, you know, wants to bless people. He says, as though Jesus comes to us reeking of hand cream. He says such a Jesus can hardly steal the soul that is daily assaulted by the enemy.
We need to learn the catechism of Psalm 24. Question, who is the king of glory? Answer, Yahweh, strong and mighty. Yahweh, mighty in battle.
We must catch the vision of the faithful and true sitting on the white horse, the one who judges and makes war in righteousness. No mild God or soft Jesus can give his people hope. It is only as we know the warrior of Israel who fights for us, and sometimes without us, that we have hope of triumphing in the muck of life. Amen a hundredfold.
Ride prosperously because of truth, humility, and righteousness. That is what our Lord Jesus does. And notice in the psalm, he not only wages war, but he is victorious in this war. I mean, would you want to follow a general that could wage war but lost?
You wouldn't sign up for that. Think about Pharaoh's army. When those chariot wheels fell off and they were in the Red Sea and the walls of water, I bet they were scratching their heads at that moment saying, why did we follow this man? You ever think about that?
I know I've said this before, kids, but those water, those walls of water were up in such a way they could probably see the fish in there. It was an amazing scene. God opens up the river. The people of God pass through.
Their feet are dry as they pass through. Pharaoh gives chase, the army follows, they go in there, and the first thing that happens is their chariot wheels fall off. What a precarious position to be in. I imagine a few of them just started running.
This doesn't look good. This can't be good. We just had our chariot in the shop. I watched them with the torque wrench.
They put that wheel on very well. There's no reason that should have fallen off. Except the God of Israel. We just buried our firstborn, whom the Lord God of Israel killed.
We just put them in the ground. We didn't listen. We rejected. We followed a madman.
And then we've actually followed him into this position. And now our wheels have fallen off. God causes this water to collapse. The waging of war in and of itself is not a noble task.
It is the waging of war in which the victor is Christ, that is the noble task. And this is highlighted here in several instances. He has dirt upon his sword, his guard, his sword upon his thigh. I take that as the word of God.
When you compare that sword that proceeds out of the mouth of Christ in the book of Revelation, talking about the word It is by his word and by his spirit that he advances the kingdom. In verse four, in meekness and humility, which characterized his earthly ministry, culminating in his death. Who would have thought that lowly one riding into Jerusalem on the donkey, on the fall, on the colt? Who would have thought he was advancing the kingdom?
You would have seen that spectacle that day and said, look at that strange fellow. He's coming into Jerusalem. And instead of being on a stallion, instead of guns blazing, instead of everything that man would consider victorious, he comes in this lowly fashion. It is in that meekness.
It is in that humility. It is in that lowly condition that he secures for us our salvation. Verse four, and the righteousness necessary to fulfill God's law and serve as a perfect sacrifice. and verse five. Notice what it says.
Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies. The people's fall under you. Anybody acquainted with guns or arrows or any sort of martial combat will tell you center mass is where you aim. You know, we got to get the head shot.
Now you go for center mass. You go for the vitals. When you go out shooting animals, you don't aim for the head or the hind quarters. You aim for center mass.
That's what's in view here. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies. The peoples fall under you. There's two ideas there.
He subdues us by his word. He takes that arrow of his word and he sends it into our heart. He brings conviction. He humbles us under his mighty hand.
He causes us to see his glory. He causes us to believe that gospel and be saved. But conversely, there are peoples who will fall under him because they did not believe. They did not look to Him.
They did not come to the Lord Jesus that they may be saved. This morning, I left you with the thought. Go home today and consider, do you love Jesus? Is He, in fact, the beloved one?
Ask yourself, as a result of looking at Psalm 45, how do I fall under Christ? Is it in submission by His grace, through faith in Christ alone? Or is it ultimately going to be? He will lower that holy foot upon me.
The scripture says that he must reign till all of his enemies are made his footstool. Are you going to be crushed in that manner? Or have you, by God's grace, been crushed now? Believe on him and then take this psalm.
Get it in your heart and be like the psalmist. And for those of us who, by God's grace, have believed, let us strive to be more like this psalmist. to have more of a fondness, more of a love, more of an adoration, more of a worship toward our Lord Jesus. May it be the case for those of us who couldn't write poetry, if our lives depended on it, to say my heart is overflowing with a good theme. I recite my composition concerning the king.
My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Let us pour it out and pray a prayer. Let us pour it out in our worship. Let us pour it out in our witness.
Let us seek by God's good grace to promote this blessed savior. Well, let us pray.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank you for your word and thank you for the continual emphasis upon the glory of Jesus Christ in the scripture. We thank you for that statement from the voice of heaven in Matthew 317. We thank you for the psalmist and what he ascribes to our Lord in this passage. God, the rest of the Bible is so full of description and of attribution and of things concerning our Lord.
I pray that all of us would take your word. We would seek to hide it in our hearts and that we would return praise and glory and honor unto you. We ask now, Father, that you would go with us in this coming week. We pray that you'd watch over your people.
We pray, Father, that you would be with your saints in their trials and in their difficulties. We pray that we'd have a view of Jesus Christ advancing his kingdom, that this psalm would indeed flesh itself out in our lives with confidence and with zeal and with a boldness. And we just ask this now, and we pray that you would go with us. And we ask in Jesus' name, amen.