A Closer Look at the Sufferings of Christ

What if a single psalm could chart both the facts of Jesus’ suffering and the feelings he carried through it? We walk through Psalm 69 as more than David’s lament, uncovering how it points to the Messiah with surprising precision and deep compassion. From the “deep mire” image to the ache of being a stranger to his brothers, we connect Old Testament prophecy to New Testament fulfillment and to the realities many of us live today.

We explore the gritty heart of substitution: Jesus did not stumble into our mess; he stepped into it for us. Drawing on 1 Peter 2:24 and 2 Corinthians 5:21, we consider how the cross deals with every hidden thought and every public failure, and why this is not just a legal exchange but an emotional one. The rejection by his family becomes more than a historical note—it’s a source of comfort for anyone facing division at home, backed by Matthew 13, Mark 3, and John 7. We also trace “zeal for your house” to the temple cleansing, framing it as a Passover-level purification where Jesus removes the leaven of corruption and restores true worship.

Then we linger at the cross with the quiet line, “I thirst,” and the sour wine lifted on a hyssop branch. It’s a small detail loaded with meaning, signaling that nothing in God’s plan is accidental or unfinished. Finally, we look ahead to the promise that God will rebuild Zion and establish a kingdom for those who love his name. Loving his name means embracing his life, his suffering, his sacrifice, his resurrection, and his return—and letting that love shape our present obedience. Listen to be strengthened in your faith, sobered by the cost of grace, and renewed in hope for the kingdom that awaits.

If this conversation stirred your heart, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a review to help more listeners find these studies. What part of Psalm 69 struck you most?

The first of Stephen's two volumes set through the Book of Revelation is now available. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQ3XCJMY

Chapters

• 0:33 Psalm 69 As Messianic Prophecy
• 1:29 The Mire Of Sin And The Cross
• 3:20 Rejection By Family And Nation
• 7:08 Zeal For The Temple Fulfilled
• 8:49 Sour Wine And The Thirst Of Christ
• 9:58 The Coming Kingdom And Our Response

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:34

Well, in our wisdom journey, we arrived today at Psalm 69. And in this Psalm, we find David pouring out his heart to God. But I want to tell you, Psalm 69 isn't just about David. This is what we call here a messianic psalm. That is, this is about Jesus Christ, our Messiah. So you need to keep in mind that David wasn't just an inspired poet, he's also an inspired prophet. You see, under the inspiring influence of the Holy Spirit, David is now going to give us some insight, not just into the facts of the Lord's suffering. He's going to tell us about the feelings the Lord experienced as well. See, this is a deeply emotional psalm that's going to reveal to us the emotions, the heart, the feelings of our Messiah. It begins here with David crying out to God in verse 2 for deliverance from what he calls the deep mire. He's sinking into a place he describes as a place where there is no foothold. Now we know there was a gate in Jerusalem known as the Dung Gate. They're at the southwest section of Jerusalem. That was where all the sewage and the garbage of the city was thrown out of that gate and down into the valley of Tophet. The last thing you'd ever want to do was lose your footing there outside that gate and fall down into that manure pile. Well, the Lord didn't accidentally slip into the manure pile of sin, did he? He took on willingly the sin of the world. He became saturated with the filth of sin as he bore it all in his body on the cross, 1 Peter 2.24. Every perverted act, every selfish deed, every pornographic thought, every act of cruelty, every wrong thought, every malicious lie, every wicked deed, every single depraved word, every sin in human history. Imagine, that includes every sin you commit, every sin I commit. Our Lord willingly sank into that mire, that mud, that filth, and he paid the penalty for it all. He literally, 2 Corinthians 5.21 tells us, he literally became sin for us. In other words, Jesus not only died for us, he died as us, sinful and depraved. Again, David writes prophetically here now in verse 8, I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien that is a foreigner to my mother's sons. See, this prophecy came to pass when the Jewish nation rejected Jesus, his own brothers, his own family, his own mother's sons, his half-brothers rejected him. In fact, when Jesus visited his hometown of Nazareth, the Jews responded with sarcasm and unbelief, and they said, Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? Are these not his brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? Are not all his sisters with us? And they took offense at him. That's over in Matthew 13. Then Mark's gospel adds the fact that when Christ's family, including his siblings, those half-brothers and sisters, when they heard that he had launched a public ministry and was calling disciples to follow him, we're told that they went out to seize him, for they were saying, He is out of his mind. Mark 3, 21. They thought he'd lost his mind. John's gospel tells us in chapter 7 and verse 5, not even his brothers believed in him. Now remember, we're told in the Bible that Jesus was Mary's firstborn son. That's the way of expressing he wasn't her only son. He was not her only son. She and Joseph would go on to have several more children. But Jesus was the firstborn, which meant he could be virgin born. In other words, the Spirit of God miraculously brought an egg to life in Mary's womb. This bypassed the sperm of Joseph. It allowed Jesus then to avoid that fallen nature of Adam, which is passed down through the male seed. Romans chapter 5, verse 12. But the Spirit of God used the egg of a human woman, and that allowed Jesus to have a human nature as well as a divine nature, although his human nature was unfallen, it was sinless. So Jesus, who is eternally God the Son, now enters the human race, born of a virgin, born without a sinful nature. He's fully human, but he's fully God. And we learn over in Matthew chapter 13 that later on more children were born to Mary and Joseph. Matthew even gave us some of their names that I just read: James, Joseph, Simon, Judas, or Jude. And this indicates the presence, this text does, of at least two unnamed sisters. So given the understanding from the clues we have in the Gospels that Joseph died sometime before Christ's public ministry began, we can only appreciate Mary all the more. See, for a number of years, she's a single mom, and she's raising at least seven children. So without falling into idolatry and false doctrine and Mary worship, we have every reason, however, to appreciate Mary. She was wonderfully obedient and committed to the will of God. But you need to keep in mind this was a divided family. There's all kinds of drama in this family. None of these siblings believed the claims of Jesus until after his resurrection. So Jesus experienced the suffering that came from a family division and all of that strife. And I say that to say he knows how it feels. And you might be going through this as well. Now, David gives us another messianic insight here in verse 9. Zeal for your house has consumed me. Well, you go over to John chapter 2, and this is going to directly apply to something Jesus does. You might remember early on in his ministry, Jesus comes to Jerusalem at Passover and he finds the temple filled with money changers and cages of animals and people selling sacrificial animals to the worshipers, by the way, overpricing them terribly. They're taking advantage of the people. Leaven most often represented corruption. So the Jewish people kind of cleaned house in the days prior to Passover. So what's Jesus doing here in the temple during Passover? Well, it's his father's house. He's cleaning house. He's getting rid of the leaven. He's cleaning out all the corruption. John's gospel tells us over in John 2, verse 17. His disciples remembered that this was written here in the Psalms: zeal for your house will consume me. Well, the disciples recall this verse and they apply it to the zeal Jesus had for his father's house. Now, here in verse 21, we find another amazing messianic prophecy here in Psalm 69. David writes, For my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink. Sound familiar? Well, didn't that find fulfillment at the cross? John chapter 19 tells us that shortly before Jesus died on the cross, he said, I thirst. Think about the fact that Jesus began his ministry hungry. He was being tempted in the wilderness. Well, now he ends his ministry thirsty. Because of what Jesus accomplished for you and me, have you ever thought about the fact that you and I will one day never hunger or thirst again? After Jesus cries out that he's thirsty, John's gospel records for us that a jar of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and and held it up to his mouth. Let me tell you, every detail prophesied in God's plan of salvation came true. Now, here toward the end of Psalm 69, uh, we're given uh the bigger picture. We're told here in verse 35, For God will save Zion and build up the cities of Judah, and people shall dwell there and possess it. The offspring of his servants shall inherit it. So David's psalm now is prophetically speaking of the of the life and death of Jesus. All that comes true, and now he transitions to speak prophetically of a coming kingdom over which the Messiah will reign. And let me tell you, that will also come true one day. And who does he say is allowed to live in this coming kingdom? Well, David answers that as he comes to the very end of his Psalm, and he writes here in verse 36, and he says, Those who love his name shall dwell in it. So let me ask you a question. Do you love his name? His name, by the way, represents everything about him his life, his suffering, his sacrificial death, his resurrection. Do you look back to his death and claim him as your Savior, the one who took your sin, dying for you? Do you do you believe that he's coming back again? And do you claim him already as your king? Well, if you do, you have a future kingdom waiting for you. And and you and I cannot begin to imagine how glorious it will be. Well, until our next wisdom journey resumes, beloved, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.