SPEAKER_01: Let me invite you to take your Bibles and open to the Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 47 is the text for this evening.
SPEAKER_01: As we celebrate Advent, we celebrate the reality that God comes to be with us.
SPEAKER_01: And Psalm 46 is a psalm for that season.
SPEAKER_01: But Psalm 47 is kind of the next stage in salvation history.
SPEAKER_01: This is a psalm of Jesus' ascent.
SPEAKER_01: And I think you'll see that as we read through the Psalm, but let's begin by doing just that.
SPEAKER_01: Let's read God's Word together.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 47.
SPEAKER_01: Let's read the Psalm in its entirety, and then we'll study it together this evening.
SPEAKER_01: If you follow with me in the Word of God beginning in verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: God's Word says this.
SPEAKER_01: To the choir master, a psalm of the sons of Korah.
SPEAKER_01: Clap your hands, all peoples.
SPEAKER_01: Shout to God with loud songs of joy.
SPEAKER_01: For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: He subdued peoples under us and nations under our feet.
SPEAKER_01: He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob, whom he loves.
SPEAKER_01: Saila.
SPEAKER_01: God has gone up with a shout.
SPEAKER_01: Yahweh with the sound of a trumpet.
SPEAKER_01: Sing praises to God, sing praises, sing praises to our king, sing praises.
SPEAKER_01: For God is the king of all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Sing praises with a psalm.
SPEAKER_01: God reigns over the nations.
SPEAKER_01: God sits on his holy throne.
SPEAKER_01: The princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: For the shields of the earth belong to God.
SPEAKER_01: He is highly exalted.
SPEAKER_01: This is the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: In 1787, there was a young British politician who encountered a group of abolitionist advocates, and this politician, recently having become a Christian, was compelled by the abolitionist arguments, became convinced that it was a just cause to which he should devote his life and his abilities.
SPEAKER_01: And he did just that.
SPEAKER_01: For the next half a century, this politician devoted himself to leading the cause of abolition in Britain.
SPEAKER_01: His work culminated in 1833 with the Slavery Abolition Act, abolishing slavery in most of the British Empire.
SPEAKER_01: That politician, of course, was William Wilberforce.
SPEAKER_01: And because I see a couple seminarians here, you might be interested to know that one of the abolitionists who persuaded him to take up the cause of abolition was Granville Sharp, the same Granville Sharp who tortures you with grammar rules in your Greek textbook.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't all he did.
SPEAKER_01: But it was 46 years from the time in which Wilberforce became convinced of the abolitionist cause to the day when he finally saw his ambitions realized.
SPEAKER_01: And Wilberforce has been justly studied often in the last 150 years.
SPEAKER_01: He's a model for us in many ways of what Christian faithfulness looks like.
SPEAKER_01: One of the many questions I think it's worthwhile to ask about Wilberforce's life is what realities compelled a person to be so doggedly persistent for so long?
SPEAKER_01: What is it that compels him to be so single-mindedly devoted to one thing?
SPEAKER_01: And you find some of the answer in the one book about Christian life that William Wilberforce wrote.
SPEAKER_01: As a politician, he wrote one book about the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: It's a phenomenal book that I would commend to every one of you to read as part of your Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: It's a little book called Real Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, that's like the modern-day publisher's version title.
SPEAKER_01: The original title was, as was the the norm in the 19th century, a little bit longer.
SPEAKER_01: The original title was a practical view of the prevailing religious system of professed Christians in the higher and middle classes in this country contrasted with real Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: You could see why a modern-day publisher would just abbreviate that.
SPEAKER_01: In the book, William Wilberforce starts with this proposition.
SPEAKER_01: He says, We generally do what we are adequately motivated to do.
SPEAKER_01: And then he goes on to describe what kinds of things would motivate a person to live a real Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: And what you get over and over in the course of this book is that he was absolutely enthralled with the greatness of God.
SPEAKER_01: He was compelled.
SPEAKER_01: He was just absolutely gripped by the greatness of God and the work of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That was why he did what he did.
SPEAKER_01: This is a psalm that kind of teaches us the same lesson.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 47 is a psalm that teaches us that joy and goodness and righteousness flow from a life that is gripped with the reality of God.
SPEAKER_01: You notice that there are only two commands in this psalm.
SPEAKER_01: One of them is in verse 1, shout to God with songs of joy.
SPEAKER_01: And the second command is in verse 6, sing praises, sing praises, sing praises, sing praises.
SPEAKER_01: The rest of the psalm is all about God.
SPEAKER_01: The basic attitude or basic principle of this psalm is that when you understand who God really is, it's going to create an attitude in your life of rejoicing and righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: The psalm is radically God-centered.
SPEAKER_01: In this Psalm, just nine short verses, we get God mentioned 14 times.
SPEAKER_01: He's the subject of all of the verbs, with the exception of those couple imperatives.
SPEAKER_01: This is a psalm that orients you around the reality of who God is.
SPEAKER_01: Some of the Psalms don't do that, right?
SPEAKER_01: Some of the Psalms are more introspective and they ask, why do I feel this way?
SPEAKER_01: And how should I deal with this?
SPEAKER_01: But many of the Psalms are externally focused.
SPEAKER_01: This is one such psalm.
SPEAKER_01: This is a psalm that's very different from the modern ethos in the 21st century of the United States of America, in which everything is about me and my feelings and my desires and what's in my heart.
SPEAKER_01: This psalm calls us to look outside of ourselves and look at the God who is on a throne, who is reigning over the world, and let your emotions begin to be shaped by that external reality.
SPEAKER_01: This psalm invites us to cast our eyes above, to see the God who is seated on a throne and to be shaped by that vision.
SPEAKER_01: This psalm tells us, in fact, we could just, I think, boil down the Psalm with this sentence.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 47 calls God's people to sing to him because of the kind of king God is.
SPEAKER_01: So this evening I just want to walk through the Psalm.
SPEAKER_01: There are basically two steps in the Psalm, and they follow these two commands.
SPEAKER_01: We're told to shout, and then we're told to sing, and with each command, we're told a reason why we should, a reason grounded in the reality of who God is.
SPEAKER_01: So let's walk through these two steps in the Psalm.
SPEAKER_01: The first step is this we're told to shout to God in verse 1 clap your hands, all peoples, shout to God with loud songs of joy.
SPEAKER_01: This first phrase, clap your hands, is a little bit ambiguous.
SPEAKER_01: You might ask the question, what kind of clapping is entailed here?
SPEAKER_01: Because there's different kinds of clapping, isn't there?
SPEAKER_01: And I don't just mean golf clap versus world cup clap.
SPEAKER_01: But in the Bible, this expression, clap your hands, is used in different kinds of contexts because you can grab somebody's hand, clap hands with somebody to agree on something, you can applaud in the form of worship.
SPEAKER_01: And the particular verbs that are used here are in the Hebrew text are used for clasping someone's hand in the sense of an agreement.
SPEAKER_01: Whenever the Psalms want to speak of ascribing to God praise through clapping of your hands, they use a different verb.
SPEAKER_01: This verb is only used in the sense of crasping somebody's hand in order to come to an agreement.
SPEAKER_01: It's used in text like this: Proverbs chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor or have given a pledge for a stranger, this expression that's translated given a pledge is the same expression in Psalm 47.
SPEAKER_01: It's if you've clapped hands with somebody.
SPEAKER_01: And so the idea is here, the nations are invited to clap hands with God, to make an agreement with God, to make a pledge to God, to pledge their loyalty and pledge their obedience to God.
SPEAKER_01: And if they do that, then they would be able to fulfill the second half of the command in the second line of verse 1: shout to God with loud songs of joy.
SPEAKER_01: And that expression is used in a number of instances in the Hebrew Bible.
SPEAKER_01: The most recent one would have been, as you're reading through the Hebrew Bible, in 1 Samuel chapter 17, when David defeats Goliath, this is the way that the Israelites respond.
SPEAKER_01: They respond by shouting to God with loud songs of joy at the defeat of their enemy.
SPEAKER_01: So the nations are here invited.
SPEAKER_01: All peoples of the world are invited to come pledge loyalty to the God of Israel and give a victory shout.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: And that's what the next three verses begin to explain to us.
SPEAKER_01: We're told to act in a certain way, but that command is grounded in realities.
SPEAKER_01: Three reasons are given here to pledge your loyalty to God and to shout to him with joy.
SPEAKER_01: First, you should pledge your loyalty to God and you should shout to him with joy because God is a fearful king over all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: For the Lord most high is to be feared, a great king over all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: That concept is fear, of course, is all over the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And the word fear is probably not the way that we would want to describe somebody if we wanted to make a good impression.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to meet my friend Joe.
SPEAKER_01: He is a fearful soul.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the kind of language that we would find attractive.
SPEAKER_01: But the God of the Bible is introduced to us over and over and over as a God who is to be feared, and we're told that that's supposed to be a good thing.
SPEAKER_01: So in what sense is God to be feared?
SPEAKER_01: And I think that you understand that well if you get to the core of what does it mean to be feared?
SPEAKER_01: What is that experience like?
SPEAKER_01: And if you think of times in your life when you have been afraid, what all those instances will have in common is that in the moment of fear, everything else is driven out.
SPEAKER_01: And you are gripped by one object.
SPEAKER_01: That one thing, the object of your fear, absolutely compels you.
SPEAKER_01: It controls all of your thoughts, it controls all of your emotions, it controls everything about you, and it compels you to act in a way appropriate to the thing that you are afraid of.
SPEAKER_01: So when the Bible says that God is a God to be feared, what it's saying is that this God is so great, so incredible, so glorious, that to see him as he is would drive every other concern out of your mind.
SPEAKER_01: And you would be gripped and compelled by the reality of who this God is.
SPEAKER_01: That's the God who then the verse goes on to say is a king over all the earth, who is in control of the world, who's reigning over the world, who's sovereign.
SPEAKER_01: This is objective reality of what the psalmist is saying.
SPEAKER_01: All peoples here are invited to come, pledge your loyalty to God because this absolutely compelling and powerful God is the uninhibited king over the world.
SPEAKER_01: You should really pay attention to him.
SPEAKER_01: But the text goes on.
SPEAKER_01: The first reason to shout to God with joy, to pledge your loyalty to him, is because he's a fearful king over all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: But secondly, because God subdues his people's enemies under their feet.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: The text goes on.
SPEAKER_01: This is in the voice of the Israelites, the voice of God's people.
SPEAKER_01: And there's probably a historical allusion here when God redeems his people out of Egypt, he brings them into the promised land, and what did he do?
SPEAKER_01: He subdued their enemies under their feet.
SPEAKER_01: In Joshua chapter 10, Joshua, after achieving some military victories, tells some of the leaders of Israel, put your feet over these leaders' necks as a symbol of what God is doing to the enemies of the people of God.
SPEAKER_01: So first we're told to fear God because of who he is, and second, we're told to rejoice in God because of what he will do for us.
SPEAKER_01: Thirdly, we're to shout to God and pledge our loyalty to him because he loves his people and chooses their inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: Look down at verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: He chose our inherit our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob, whom he loves.
SPEAKER_01: Now, that little expression pride of Jacob is not very common in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob usually is just the name.
SPEAKER_01: He is the father of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: His name is later changed to Israel, of course.
SPEAKER_01: And so when you refer to Jacob, you're usually referring to his descendants, the people of Israel, the people of God.
SPEAKER_01: But to refer to the pride of Jacob isn't a very common expression.
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it occurs a couple other times in the Bible, both in Amos.
SPEAKER_01: And it can be a good thing or it can be a bad thing.
SPEAKER_01: In Amos chapter 6, verse 7, God says, I abhor the pride of Jacob, in the sense that Jacob has become proud and lifted himself up.
SPEAKER_01: But then just two chapters later, in chapter 8 and verse 6, God says that God is the pride of Jacob and he's to be exalted.
SPEAKER_01: So see the question about when we're asking the talking about the pride of Jacob, the the question to ask is, well, what is Jacob taking pride in in this context?
SPEAKER_01: If Jacob is taking pride in himself, that's abhorrent in God's eyes.
SPEAKER_01: But if Jacob is taking pride in God and boasting in God and delighting in God and setting God up as his treasure, well, that's exactly the way that the world is supposed to be ordered.
SPEAKER_01: And here we find a third use of this little expression.
SPEAKER_01: In the book of Amos, the Israelites are commended for making God their pride.
SPEAKER_01: But here, God is saying that I've made Jacob my boast.
SPEAKER_01: There's a sense in which there is this, and it's followed up by this expression, whom he loves.
SPEAKER_01: That is, God is reciprocating the love that his people are giving to him.
SPEAKER_01: So at the beginning of this text, all peoples of the earth are invited to pledge loyalty to God, to shout for him to him with joy, and at the end of this uh portion of the psalm, they are promised that God will love you back.
SPEAKER_01: The God over all the earth, the God who would, if you were to get even a glimpse of what he is really like, would absolutely overwhelm you.
SPEAKER_01: That God will love you back.
SPEAKER_01: That's an incredible reality, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: An absolutely overwhelming reality.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what this psalm is really about.
SPEAKER_01: This psalm is about getting us out of ourselves, getting us out of the thoughts that plague our minds, of the worries and anxieties that are real and really do wrap their tentacles around our mind and our emotions.
SPEAKER_01: This psalm is about helping us to look up above the scope of what's in our immediate vicinity and what's in our immediate day planner and look at the great realities of the world.
SPEAKER_01: There is a God who reigns over the entire world who is calling you to pledge your loyalty to him, calling you to put your delight in him, calling you to make him your boast.
SPEAKER_01: And when you do, you will find that it's because he loved you in the first place.
SPEAKER_01: That's the first thing that we're told to do in this psalm.
SPEAKER_01: We're told to pledge our loyalty and shout to God.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a second thing that we're called to do, and that begins after the break, the selah, that little interlude at the end of verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: Then the psalm picks up again in verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: So look down at your Bibles with me at verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: It says, God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.
SPEAKER_01: That seems like kind of a random assertion to make.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I think verse 5 is really key to understanding the entire psalm, but in order to understand it, we're going to have to come back to that verse.
SPEAKER_01: Because immediately when you get to the next line in verse 6, we're back into a command.
SPEAKER_01: Sing praises.
SPEAKER_01: Sing praises to God.
SPEAKER_01: Sing praises to our king.
SPEAKER_01: Sing praises.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the second command.
SPEAKER_01: We're told to sing to God.
SPEAKER_01: And we're told, in fact, to sing in this staccato command.
SPEAKER_01: Sing, sing, sing, sing.
SPEAKER_01: There's this rising crescendo of expectation of the kinds of emotions that God's people are supposed to have when they're beholding him as he really is.
SPEAKER_01: Sing praises to God.
SPEAKER_01: That word sing it occurs 45 times in the Hebrew Bible, 41 times in the Psalms, and the other four times are all in songs outside of the Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: This is a verb that's only used in the context of songs.
SPEAKER_01: It is a singing verb.
SPEAKER_01: So I say that because sometimes when I talk about singing, I know that different Bible translations will render this Hebrew word in a number of different ways.
SPEAKER_01: Some of them will say s shout, some of them will say rejoice, and sometimes I'll get a question afterwards.
SPEAKER_01: Are you sure that really means singing and doesn't just mean kind of shouting?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure it means singing.
SPEAKER_01: It means singing with joy, singing with passion, because of who God is.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where the song goes next, or the psalm rather goes next.
SPEAKER_01: Sing praises to God in verse 6, and then it's followed up with two reasons that we should praise him.
SPEAKER_01: First in verse 7, because God again is king over all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: God is king of all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: So sing praise with the psalm.
SPEAKER_01: We've seen already that God is this king depicted in Psalm 47 over all the earth, but now we're told because he's a king, we're supposed to sing to him with a psalm.
SPEAKER_01: And the word that's translated psalm here, it's the normal word for psalm.
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's a couple different words in Hebrew that get translated as psalm in our English versions.
SPEAKER_01: This song, this word rather, is an interesting word.
SPEAKER_01: It is a technical musical term, but the early Jewish community, before, during, and after the time of Jesus often understood it as a song that you're supposed to sing with your mind very active.
SPEAKER_01: Like of all of the songs, all of the words that denote musical songs, this one in particular is supposed to call to attention.
SPEAKER_01: You're supposed to really think about what you're singing now.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, really meditate on what you are singing.
SPEAKER_01: That's the idea is that's replete through the psalm, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: That you're supposed to think about the truth of who God is, and the truth of who God is is going to shape your emotions and your response to Him.
SPEAKER_01: This is a biblical truth that runs all through the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: Some commentators think that when Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 says, I'll pray with my spirit, but I'll pray with my mind also, may even be alluding to this psalm.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the way that Jesus teaches that he wants people to worship him.
SPEAKER_01: John chapter 4, when Jesus speaks with the woman at the well, he tells the woman, an hour is coming and is now here.
SPEAKER_01: When the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
SPEAKER_01: The truth of who God is, ignited by the Spirit within you, is supposed to create an electric, a a powerful response of worship to the living God.
SPEAKER_01: But the psalmist doesn't stop in verse 7 either.
SPEAKER_01: He gives another reason why we're supposed to sing to God.
SPEAKER_01: So look at verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: God reigns over the nations, God sits on his holy throne.
SPEAKER_01: God's people are supposed to sing to him because God is and has been reigning the earth over the earth from his throne.
SPEAKER_01: Now if you look at verse 8, notice how verse 8 compares to the other instances in which God is declared to be the king.
SPEAKER_01: Notice verse 7, God is the king.
SPEAKER_01: And in verse 2, God is a great king over all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: It's focusing on the person of who God is.
SPEAKER_01: But look at verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: God reigns over the nations.
SPEAKER_01: He sits on his holy throne.
SPEAKER_01: Here the focus is on God's activity.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason I say that is this song makes an emphatic declaration that God is, has been, will be reigning over everyone, everything, all the time.
SPEAKER_01: Everything that happens in the world happens according to God's plan.
SPEAKER_01: What God wants to occur in the world is going to come to pass.
SPEAKER_01: And the song is act asking you to look up from your circumstances and to remember this great reality.
SPEAKER_01: That God is still, has been, will be on his throne, and this God is going to reign and bring all things together for his purposes, for his glory, and your good.
SPEAKER_01: And you can bank on that.
SPEAKER_01: And the deeper you sink your roots into that reality, the higher your praise to him is going to rise.
SPEAKER_01: Now I mentioned that because it is the teaching of the psalm, but it's also going to be helpful when we come back to verse 5 in a second and ask what in the world that verse means.
SPEAKER_01: Before we do, let me just remind you of Psalm 93, verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: The psalmist in 90 Psalm 93 says, Your throne, O God, is established from of old.
SPEAKER_01: You are from everlasting.
SPEAKER_01: This is the teaching everywhere in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
SPEAKER_01: God reigns, always has, always will.
SPEAKER_01: This fearful God who reigns over all the earth, loves his people, subdues their enemies, and gives them an inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: And the Psalm says the only appropriate way to respond to that is to shout to God, to pledge your loyalty, and to sing to him, to delight in him, to love him, because he is the God over all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: the earth and he wants to reign as the God of your life.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's the psalm in a nutshell, but this basic reality that there is a God who reigns, this God is good, he loves his people, he secures their future, he orchestrates everything in their life according to his purposes.
SPEAKER_01: And he's calling you to look up and to fix it, fix your mind, fix your heart on that unchanging reality, and bank your hopes for the future on the truths of God's word and not your circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: But the song doesn't stop there.
SPEAKER_01: It could stop there and it would be a really good song.
SPEAKER_01: But it just keeps going.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason that I emphasize that it keeps going is because the song really keeps going not just beyond your present circumstances, not even just beyond the immediate context in this song, but it really keeps going through scripture on into eternity.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to show you what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse nine.
SPEAKER_01: Verse nine gives us an additional reason why we should praise the king over all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse nine.
SPEAKER_01: It says the princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham for the shields of the earth belong to God.
SPEAKER_01: He is highly exalted.
SPEAKER_01: Now look at that verse a little closer.
SPEAKER_01: The princes of the peoples it's the people's plural so this is talking about different people groups different ethnic people groups linguistic people groups these are non-Israelites these are the Gentiles and this is in the Old Testament saying that these different people groups these gentile people groups are being gathered they're not that they're gathering in the active but they're being gathered gathering together and they're gathering as the people of the God of Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: They're gathering and being treated as the people of the God of Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: They're being treated like Israel.
SPEAKER_01: So this is an invitation for all the peoples different Gentile people groups to gather to God and be treated as the God of Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: How is that going to happen?
SPEAKER_01: Now if you've read your Old Testament from the very beginning you know this was the plan and intent and the purpose of God and if this God is reigning over all the earth he's going to fulfill that purpose.
SPEAKER_01: It's the original promise that he gave to Abraham when he promised Abraham, I'm going to give you seed and a land and I'm going to make you a blessing that will extend to all the peoples of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis 123 God told Abraham I will bless those who bless you him who dishonors you I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 47 is picking up that thread that runs right through your Old Testament and saying the God who reigns is going to make that happen.
SPEAKER_01: And now in the invitation we have in verse 1 that promise that all the peoples of the earth are going to be blessed through the seed of Abraham is being bent out invitationally and that all the peoples are being invited to come and pledge your loyalty to the God of Israel and find that he loves you and he'll treat you as the people of Abraham and he'll bless you with his covenant blessings.
SPEAKER_01: He'll bless you with salvation and bring you into his very family and then the Psalm says this here's where it ends he is highly exalted.
SPEAKER_01: That's where the psalm ends which does two things number one it maintains the Godward focus of the song everything in the psalm is focused not on us but on God's source of our joy that's going to be the source of your hope and your joy and your gladness some of you have been watching the World Cup maybe in the last couple weeks and when there's something exciting that happens on the field occasionally you will have uh the camera pan to some of the crowd and you'll see people shouting and celebrating but that's not where the camera is really fixated most of the time it's just an occasional little glance to the people who are celebrating most of the time the camera's fixed on the field isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine what it would be like what watching a a game would be like whether it's soccer or football or whatever if it were the reverse if most of the time the cameras were fixated on the crowd and occasionally you got a little glance to the field.
SPEAKER_01: How out of order, how weird would you be if you wanted to look at that and yet that's kind of the basic default setting of our society and of our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: We're so fixated on ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: We're so fixated on people around us.
SPEAKER_01: We're not fixated on external great realities.
SPEAKER_01: But just as when you're watching a game it's the what's happening on the field that gives you joy and then sometimes as you're experiencing the joy you want to glance around and see that other people are participating and sharing that and you get to share that joy with them.
SPEAKER_01: So it is in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: Your joy doesn't come from you your joy doesn't come from those around you.
SPEAKER_01: Your joy comes from God.
SPEAKER_01: Your joy comes from fixing yourself on the reality of who God is and what he has done for you.
SPEAKER_01: And there are and there should be glances around to see that other people are participating in that joy and you're sharing in it together.
SPEAKER_01: But the focus has to be vertical it has to be on the field.
SPEAKER_01: It has to be on God on his throne.
SPEAKER_01: That's where the action is that's where your joy comes from so this conclusion does that.
SPEAKER_01: That's the first thing the conclusion does.
SPEAKER_01: But secondly when the psalm finishes here he is highly exalted it also brings us full circle to this verse in the middle of the psalm that we skipped over and now we can go back to it.
SPEAKER_01: Go back up to verse five where the psalm reads God has gone up with a shout the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.
SPEAKER_01: And now we can start making sense of what in the world this little verse right in the middle of the psalm is all about.
SPEAKER_01: It's actually the thread that runs through the whole song and gives it its meaning.
SPEAKER_01: But we have to ask what so what is what does it mean?
SPEAKER_01: And the reason that I belabor this is because if you look at verse 5, God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.
SPEAKER_01: That is the language of a coronation.
SPEAKER_01: That's the language that would be used of a king being coronated in an ancient ceremony.
SPEAKER_01: So what do we make of that?
SPEAKER_01: There are a number of commentators who would say that this is Israel looking at the coronation ceremonies in the pagan religions around them and copying it and attributing that to their God.
SPEAKER_01: It was common in ancient Near Eastern religions that every year there would be a coronation ceremony where the the God of the people was ritually enthroned again as their God.
SPEAKER_01: And so there are some commentators that think Israel just looking at their neighbors and they're adopting the practices of their neighbors.
SPEAKER_01: Now I would say no I don't think that's what's happening for a number of reasons one of which is that I think the dissimilarities between this language and the language in other ancient Near Eastern religions is greater than the similarities.
SPEAKER_01: But I mean also I could say the scriptures over and over and over proclaim that God reigns permanently period He doesn't get re-enthroned.
SPEAKER_01: He's not recoronated there's no point in time in which God became king he's always been king.
SPEAKER_01: We already saw that in verse 8 and we saw that in Psalm 93 God has always been king he doesn't get coronated.
SPEAKER_01: But this is coronation language and you know what I mean by coronation right for those of you who don't stay up all night watching King Charles and his coronation there is a such a thing as a coronation ceremony wherein the king is ritually enthroned and becomes the king at that moment and he's not king before that.
SPEAKER_01: King Charles isn't King Charles until he's coronated.
SPEAKER_01: Elsa isn't Elsa she's not the queen until she's coronated even in the Lion King Simba isn't the king he's not the Lion King until he climbs up Pride Rock and roars.
SPEAKER_01: He has to be coronated to become king.
SPEAKER_01: And this is coronation language God goes up there's the shout and the trumpet and there's the celebration that God has become king.
SPEAKER_01: So what do you do with this been king or does he become king at a particular moment?
SPEAKER_01: That's the question.
SPEAKER_01: And like with a lot of things in scripture the answer is yes.
SPEAKER_01: God has always been king but is there a sense in which God became king is there a day in which God became king in a different way and the answer once you keep turning the pages of that book in your lap is yes there is a time at which God became king in a new way it's what happened when Jesus ascended back to heaven upon Jesus's incarnation that we celebrate at Christmas and his death and resurrection he didn't just stay on the earth he ascended back into heaven and he ascended into heaven not because he got bored with wearing sandals he ascended into heaven in order to be coronated as king.
SPEAKER_01: When he arrives in heaven there is a glorious heavenly coronation ceremony in which Jesus is crowned as the king of heaven and earth.
SPEAKER_01: That's what this psalm is pointing forward to the psalm is pointing forward to a reality that yes God has always reigned but there's going to come a day when God is going to take up his throne in a new way that's what happened the day Jesus ascended into heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says in Ephesians chapter 1 when God raised Jesus from the dead he seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places he made him king so God has always been the king but when Jesus was ascended into heaven sat down at the right hand of the Father and was coronated as the king of heaven and earth he became king in a new way he became king as the God man.
SPEAKER_01: And what that means for you and me is this God has always been king over you.
SPEAKER_01: He's always been the fearful king he always will be the fearful king.
SPEAKER_01: He's always reigned over you and everything else.
SPEAKER_01: But because God became a man and descended back into heaven and is now the king of heaven and earth as the God man, he's not just going to reign over you, he's going to reign with you and in you that's where Paul goes next in Ephesians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: When God saves us he raises us up with Christ and he seats us with him in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_01: That's coronation language.
SPEAKER_01: The language that Paul picks up is he picks up the language of coronation ceremonies in the Roman world and says when God saved you he raised you up spiritually and sat you down on the throne with Jesus and made you a partaker of his reign over the heavens and the earth no that is the very thing that Satan was kicked out of heaven for trying to obtain Satan tries to ascend to God's throne and is cast down as a result of it.
SPEAKER_01: But because Jesus is your mediator Jesus is your representative when he ascends into heaven he offers to give you the very thing Satan was denied we receive heavenly reign when we receive Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: This is where the scripture is taking us the culmination of this book is Revelation chapter 22 where God's servants will see his face and they will reign with him forever and ever that's the kind of king you have.
SPEAKER_01: What Psalm 47 is asking us to do is to pick up our eyes off of all of the many many things that grab our attention grab our emotions and put our eyes on the reality that there is a God who reigns over the whole earth that God humbled himself becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross now God has highly exalted him and given him a name that is above every name and when you received him you were scooped up and you've been placed in his heavenly reign forever and ever and ever that's your King and he is very much worth singing to.
SPEAKER_01: Lord we worship you because of who you are and we thank you that we get to be here tonight and to remember the truths of your word.
SPEAKER_01: We pray that you would stir our affections and stir our hearts and our minds that we would respond with love to the love that you have shown to us.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you that we have something worth singing about we have a Savior who is worth shouting about we have a savior who's worth pledging our loyalty to bowing our knees to embracing and loving and treasuring for we pray that you would fit us for service this week that we would be people who are adequately motivated to live lives of service adequately motivated to live lives worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you that you have called us to such a great salvation we pray these things in Jesus' name amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us if you're in the Washington DC area I would love to see you at Emanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church or our current service times go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington DC location go to tms.edu I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily serve others around you and share the gospel with boldness