Sunday 07 • 01 • 19

The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies. Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments. From the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at your right hand. He will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses. He will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. He will drink from the brook by the way. Therefore, he will lift up his head. — Psalm 110

Word of the Lord. Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we pray this morning that you would calm our hearts and at the same time, enliven them to your word. Lord, we pray that you would filter out distractions of our lives, our week, even things that are going on in our minds that are not focused on you and your word. We pray, Lord, this morning that you would make our minds and our hearts a welcoming place for your word to come in and transform us. Lord, use the words of this Psalm to change us, to give us cause to rejoice in who you are, and we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Silly Love Songs

In 1976, which was the year that I was born, Paul McCartney had left the Beatles and formed his own group, The Wings. He had been criticized because critics said that all Paul McCartney could write was poppy, sappy love songs. They had panned a lot of the Wings' earlier songs as replays of what the Beatles had already done, and essentially said, "Paul McCartney is through."

Then in '76, he released a song called "Silly Love Songs," which was a direct response to his critics. The lyrics went something like this: "You'd think that people would have had enough of silly love songs, but I look around me and I see that isn't so. Oh, no. Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs and what's wrong with that? I'd like to know because here I go again." The substance of the song was brilliant—the chorus was simply the words "I love you" over and over again. It was a brilliant response to his critics. They all loved it. They said, "He's making fun of us. We love it." It got rave critical reviews and sat at number one in the United States for about six weeks and became the overall number one song of 1976.

I have used it on every mixtape that I've made for my wife. I sing it to my kids when they're going to bed at night. I love that song, and I love Paul McCartney. I grew up being a big Beatles fan. He was my favorite Beatle, and I love that he wrote that song in the year of my birth. It's a great song.

The Distinctiveness of Psalm 110

I thought about it a lot this week as I was writing this sermon because here we are with another Psalm about Jesus Christ. And it feels like maybe to some of you like, "Here we go again. Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs about Jesus." And yet, this Psalm is distinct. This Psalm is somewhat special. It's somewhat unique from all of the Psalms that we've already considered.

I want to point out just a couple of things about this Psalm. First of all, while all of the other Psalms that we've looked at, in some way, shape, or form have pointed to Christ, they have had a historical context that made it clear that the Psalm was also about something else. It was about this or that king who was a type of Christ, and so therefore this song is really ultimately about Christ and points us to Christ. Or it looked at some aspect of who we are in our need, and our need somehow brought us to Christ.

This Psalm, however, can't really easily be fixed in any historical context. It is listed as a Psalm of David, but it's hard to say that David was singing about anything other than Christ. In fact, the Jews of Jesus's day all universally recognized that this was a Psalm about the Messiah. David wasn't writing a song about his own kingship. He wasn't writing a song about his son's kingship. He wasn't writing a song about Saul's kingship or any other king. He was writing about a coming king who would be a more full and more complete king than he could possibly imagine in his current context.

This Psalm is clearly about Christ. And we see that's true in other ways too. This Psalm is the most quoted Psalm in all of the New Testament. Verse one alone is referenced directly five different times and alluded to at least twelve to fifteen other times in the New Testament, just verse one.

Verse four, the author of Hebrews basically takes and spends something like three to four chapters expounding on—from the end of chapter six until essentially the end of chapter nine—all about verse four of this Psalm. So, the New Testament recognized and grabbed on to this Psalm and recognized that it was about Christ in ways that really no other Psalm could claim to.

I want to look at this Psalm. I want us to bask in this Psalm. I want us to soak our hearts in the words of the Psalm this morning. And I want to tease out the structure of this Psalm as kind of our outline for our sermon this morning.

There are within this Psalm two oracles or royal decrees of God. I want to look at those. There are also two separate addresses in which the Psalmist addresses first God the Son, Jesus, and then God the Father. So there's two decrees and then also two addresses. And then finally, I want to look at a hidden speaker of this Psalm.

Now, just to highlight for you the structure of the Psalm: do we have the slide that I put up? I want you to see—if you look at what I've done in classic K Arthur inductive Bible study method—just for you, for those of you who know what that is. If you look at verse one, what I've done here is I've put essentially anything that refers to God the Father, Yahweh, in red. I put in red things that refer to him and his words. A lot of you have red letter edition Bibles where the words of Jesus are in red. I like the Bibles that actually go back into the Old Testament and put the words of God the Father also in red. That's a really powerful thing. If you read the Old Testament with that, where you actually see God's words in red, it gives you a sense of their weight.

Well, I've done that here, and then I've taken and put in blue words that refer to the Son. You can see that right in the first verse. The Lord—notice that Lord is in all caps, L-O-R-D. That's because the Hebrew word for Lord there is different than the Hebrew word for Lord that's in blue. The Hebrew word that's in red is essentially Yahweh—the name of God. The Jews, out of respect for that, went through their Bibles and changed it, and Christians, out of respect for that name, have gone through their Bibles and changed it. But to indicate that that's what that word is, oftentimes in English translations, the word Lord appears in all caps to indicate that we're talking about the Lord, Yahweh.

He says, "to my Lord," right? Notice that's blue, and that's the Hebrew word Adonai. Simply, the word Lord—that could be translated master. It could be translated a number of different ways, but essentially it can be referenced to any human king or lord or master or anyone with any kind of authority over others. It doesn't necessarily refer to God.

I've gone through and said, okay, the first decree you see is in verse one, and that's in red right there:

Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool

The "yours" are in blue because it's talking to the second Lord. And then there's an address to the Son. Notice how it says:

The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter

It's talking to the second Lord, but it's talking to the second Lord about the first Lord.

Show the second slide, please. Then we move into verse four. There's a second prophetic decree where the Lord appears and issues a second decree, and then there's finally a second address. And this time, the Lord there is in blue. He's talking about the second Lord, but who is the "your" at your right hand? He's talking to Yahweh in that second section.

Does that give you some sense of the structure of this Psalm? I wanted to do those visual aids just to help indicate that. You have the two prophetic decrees and then the two addresses.

The Two Prophetic Decrees

Let's start by looking at the two prophetic decrees together. First, in verse one—you want to go back to the first slide? Yeah, great.

First, in verse one is the first decree:

The Lord says to my Lord

The first thing I want you to see about this: David, he's not talking about his sons. Earlier, I spoke about Psalm 72, and I said that David was actually writing a coronation Psalm for Solomon, and that was meant to be essentially a type that never found its full, complete fulfillment until the Lord Jesus came. In this section, David's not talking about his son, Solomon, because he wouldn't ever have referred to his son, Solomon, as "my Lord."

Jesus picks up on this in Mark chapter 12. Jesus quotes this very Psalm.

Basically, the context of Mark chapter 12 is that all of the scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians come to Jesus and try to stump him. They keep asking him questions, and he's knocking them all out of the park, showing his mastery of scripture well above all of them. That section concludes with Jesus quoting this verse.

What he says is essentially: How is it that you scribes can say that the Messiah is a son of David? How can you say that he's merely a son of David? Jesus wasn't saying that the Messiah wouldn't be a son of David—of course he was a son of David. He was simply making the point that they were saying he was going to be a human descendant, an earthly king. He was making the point: How can you say that's merely the case? Because David would never have referred to one of his own descendants as "my lord."

Sit at my right hand — Psalm 110:1

The scribes are stumped because the Jewish understanding would have been that a father is always greater than their sons. A father would never refer to a son as "my lord." Jesus's point was well taken. It's actually one of the places in the gospel of Mark where Jesus is essentially claiming divinity. He's saying that the Messiah must be more than merely a son of David. He must be more than merely a human. He must be more than merely an earthly king. He must be God.

Christ's Divine Authority

That's the first thing I want you to see from this royal decree: the Lord is declaring my Lord Jesus himself as divine and having authority over all of creation. This is a royal decree that God himself has set his son at his right hand, giving him all power and all authority. This is essentially a picture, an image, a prophecy that David saw before it happened of the Lord Jesus Christ rising from the dead, ascending into heaven, coming into the throne room, and God himself saying, "Jesus, well done. Take your seat here at my right hand with all power and all authority right below you."

I think a lot of times we have a tendency to treat Jesus as a king a little bit like a president. Like we elected him, we've given him the authority and power that he has over our life because we invited him in. We prayed to receive him. We chose him, and therefore he has authority over our life. That's where his authority comes from—it comes from us. Probably most of us would be wise enough not to say that out loud, but often that's how we live. We live as though Christ's kingship, his kingly authority, is something that we've handed over to him, that we've given him. We treat him like we would treat an earthly ruler—someone who has limited power and limited authority, someone whose limited power and limited authority could be ended.

The point of verse one is that it's not. The root of Christ's kingship isn't in our opinion of him. It isn't in any of the things that happen here on this earth. It's not the root of whatever goes on in our lives. It is by eternal decree from Almighty God himself.

Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool — Psalm 110:1

Application

The application of that is important. We need to submit ourselves to the kingship of Christ. My little son, Peter—he's a mess. He's got to be the clumsiest kid on the face of the earth. I know some of you have some kids, maybe you'll argue with me about that, but Peter, I think he takes the cake. The other day, he was playing on our bed while we were packing up for a trip, and we said, "Peter, get down from the bed. You're going to hurt yourself." And he says to me, "Dad, I want to do what I want to do." He's not the first Sutton kid to say that, by the way. He then proceeded immediately after saying that to jump into the suitcase, which was slick on the outside, and slide off of the bed like a sled and land on the floor and immediately start crying.

Jesus is king. Jesus is king, and he is Lord, and he rules over us. He wants what's best for us. His authority and his kingship is there because he deserves it, because he has the better view of what it means to be righteous and holy and live a good and true life. We need to submit to his kingly power and authority.

Another point of application: the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ's kingship rests in God's eternal decree means it can't be changed. A lot of times we feel like the events of the world are crowding in on Christ's kingship.

Like that somehow, the events of our lives or the events of what's going on in our country could somehow, in some way, be a threat to the authority and majesty and power and dominion of Christ. I'll give you another illustration. Many of you know that our senior pastor is on sabbatical this summer and he has left me in charge. How scared are all of you? You should be scared. I'll tell you this, I'm even more scared than you are. I can't tell you how many times I've woken up on the mornings this summer and gone, "Oh, hope I don't run the church into the ground."

But the truth is this: the kingship of Jesus, his kingdom, its administration, this church is not in my hands. It was never in Jeff's hands. It is in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ who has been given all power and authority and dominion for all time by the Lord God himself by eternal decree in red letters, and he will rule until his enemies are made into his footstool.

The picture there is an ancient Middle Eastern culture. A lot of times you'd see depictions like the Egyptians, for example, in hieroglyphics, sitting on their throne with their subjugated enemies bowing down before their throne and then resting their feet on them. The image is this: the enemies are so conquered that the enemies themselves are upholding the feet of the king. The enemies themselves become essentially a part of the throne. It's a complete and utter and total defeat. And that is the promise, the eternal decree of God: that Jesus Christ will sit on the throne until all of his enemies are completely and totally conquered. Until his enemies and their defeat ultimately support his kingly authority as he sits on the throne. That is the eternal promise of God—Christ the king, Presbyterian Church.

Can you rejoice in that? And rejoice in the fact that Jesus Christ—notice also he's called "my lord." We didn't elect him, but he elected us. He's ours. He's given himself to us, and he sits at the right hand of God for our best interests. It's something to rejoice over. It's something to sing about. It's something that David sang about when he foresaw it a thousand years before Christ.

The Second Decree

But let's move to the second decree. The second decree is equally as important and exciting. Verse four, can we?

The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: "You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." — Psalm 110:4

Jesus isn't just a king. He's not just seated at the right hand of the throne of God in kingly authority. He also sits at the right hand of God as a priest. Melchizedek is an interesting reference. He first encountered Melchizedek in Genesis 14. Melchizedek is this kind of mysterious figure. He's the king of Salem. His name means king of righteousness. Salem means peace. So he's the king of righteousness and the king of peace. He is both a king and a priest of the Most High God.

Abraham basically comes back from going on a military campaign to rescue his nephew Lot, and Melchizedek—this mysterious figure who's both a king and a priest, which wasn't supposed to happen according to Old Testament law—shows up and blesses Abraham, gives him bread and wine. And then receives a tenth of all that Abraham had taken from the people that he conquered as he was taking back his nephew Lot.

So this mysterious figure—many Christians recognize Melchizedek as a pre-incarnate form of Christ, that he actually came and blessed father Abraham as this priest-king from Salem. And all of the pieces fit for that, right? King of righteousness, king of peace, serving bread and wine. What does that sound like? Communion, right? Offering blessings, receiving a tenth. Maybe he's Jesus.

The author of Hebrews doesn't quite go that far, but in chapters basically seven through nine, the author of Hebrews does identify Jesus as a priest in the order of Melchizedek, essentially highlighting a couple of things about how Jesus's priesthood was different than the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament.

One of the first things that he notices is that it's a better priesthood. It's an eternal priesthood, and we see that here: "You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." The Old Testament priests, the Levitical priests, they came and went. You might have a good priest, you might have a bad priest. Doesn't matter. They're only going to live about seventy years, and then the next priest comes, and hopefully that priest is a good priest.

Because the function of a priest was essentially to represent the people before God and to offer sacrifices to atone for sins. And if you had a bad priest, the atonement didn't really work the way that it was supposed to, and God would get angry and pour out his anger upon the people. So you could have good priests, bad priests that could come and go.

It was very unstable. Moreover, there was a sacrifice that essentially was a band aid on a flesh wound. They would offer animal sacrifices which were not enough to really fully completely cover over the people's sin. It would work for a little while but they had to be constantly offered. Over and over and over again. The sacrifices never stopped and the author of Hebrews makes a big point of saying, hey, Jesus is seated in the heavenly realms as the king priest. Why is that important? Because he's not standing up offering sacrifices anymore. The sacrifice that he offered his very self is enough and is eternal.

And David seeing this beforehand recognizing that this king is greater than him and that both he is a king and a priest is celebrating the fact that this priest king, his sacrifice is so powerful, so meaningful that God recognizes him as the best kind of priest and wants to ordain him as a priest forever. That he'll never leave, never be the one that's not standing before the throne of God interceding for us.

I'm going to use another Peter, my son illustration for this. Couple months ago, Peter was diagnosed with something called ITP. ITP—he had a blood disorder. Essentially what happened was his platelet levels dropped to a very dangerous level. He was at like 5,000 when he's supposed to be at somewhere between 25,000 to 150,000. So what that meant practically speaking is you could touch his arm and he would bruise. Just touch him and if he got cut he would bleed and bleed and bleed and bleed and there would be no clotting. It was a very dangerous thing.

So we took him to the hospital. Initially, we started treating this by saying, okay, well, let's just keep him safe. Let's put band aids on these cuts and make sure that he stops bleeding and that was a temporary solution. But what they had to do at the hospital was they had to give him something called IVIG which essentially reset his nervous system and rebooted it so that it would produce essentially the blood platelets that he needed in order to be healthy and survive.

Jesus Christ, when he offered himself as a sacrifice on the cross, when he interceded on our behalf as our high priest and offered himself as a sacrifice, created a permanent solution to our sin. It wasn't a band aid on a flesh wound. It was heart surgery that transformed us and changed us and saved us forever. And God in honor of that and in recognition of that says, you will be my high priest forever because you are the best priest.

The Application: Christ's Complete Sacrifice

The application for us this morning, Christ the King. I want you to think about this: not only is there nothing on this earth that can threaten Christ's kingship, there is nothing that can threaten his priestly sacrifice on our behalf. He has made the sacrifice of atonement and he has completely covered our sin.

What that means is that there are some of you who are wrestling with all kinds of sin in your life. You come here every Sunday and you're just kind of thinking, I'm not sure I can take communion. I'm not sure I can take it because my sin is pretty awful this week. Whatever I did, whatever was happening in my heart, whatever thoughts that I had, they're just so rotten, so miserable, so bad that I don't know that I can come before the throne of grace.

And here's what this verse says: Jesus Christ is a priest forever because he is a complete and whole priest and the sacrifice that he has offered is whole and complete. Don't you dare come into this church where we are led by a priest ordained by the Most High God by decree and tell him that he isn't good enough as a priest to cover your sin. He is. God has said he is and he will not change his mind. He will be a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. Amen. You can come rejoicing in good standing because of the priest of the Most High God, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Two Addresses

These are the two decrees and now let's look quickly at the two addresses. The first address is in verses two through three. So if we look at this again, remember this is an address to the Son. After the first decree, David says:

The Lord that is Yahweh sends forth from Zion, your mighty scepter, Jesus. Rule in the midst of your enemies, Jesus. Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments. From the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. — Psalm 110:2-3

Real quickly, those verses—what are they saying? Obviously, this is real poetic language. Verse two: "the Lord sends forth from Zion, your mighty scepter, rule in the midst of your enemies." The picture of a scepter in the ancient Near East is the stick, right? The king's hold. A lot of times it has lots of pretty jewels on it and it's real pretty and kind of ceremonial and you think, okay, what is that? Like, is that for, you know, beating the guest on the head when he tells a bad joke? Like, what is a scepter for?

The image is rooted in ancient Near Eastern kings. All kings throughout all ages often had scepters, but the picture is essentially a holdover from pastoral life—a shepherding picture, often depicted as a crook in its earliest forms. When God extends His scepter, notice that it's the Lord, Yahweh, who extends Jesus's scepter. Notice the unity of action in that. Jesus's scepter is extended by the Most High God, and the picture is one of a shepherd over his sheep. That's why Psalm 23 is a messianic Psalm—it's a picture of Christ's kingship over us. He is our shepherd. When he says he is the great shepherd of the sheep, he's saying, "I'm a great king. I am going to watch over my flock."

As he extends his scepter, right, it's in the midst of his enemies. This is important because the timeline of this vision essentially is this: this is our time. This is where we are. The enemies are still present. Yes, the enemies of Christ. Do people still die? Do we still struggle with sin? Is there still pain and suffering in this world? Is Satan still active? The enemies are all here. But the power of those enemies has been removed. Jesus Christ rules in the midst of them. He has authority. Satan isn't sitting at the right hand of God. None of the angels are sitting at the right hand of God. It is only Jesus that sits at the right hand of God, and it is God himself who extends Jesus's scepter. Even in the midst of his enemies, he's gathering his flock. Right? He's extending his scepter, and you pick up on that:

Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments. — Psalm 110:3

That's us, church. That's us. The expression of God's sovereign rule through Jesus Christ is going to look like people whose hearts are changed coming back to the Lord under the kingship of Christ, being gathered as sheep into the kingdom. And it's a picture of us being gathered and us being cared for and us being shepherded and us being protected and us being guided by our king. And that's what it looks like to live in the kingdom: to trust in his protection, to trust in his guidance, to trust in his shepherding.

And then the picture also is one of a military picture. Your people—there's a gathering army, right? Do you see that? We are a gathering army under our king. We are his sheep, but we are warrior sheep who are going to fight alongside of our great king.

From the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. — Psalm 110:3

It's essentially a poetic way of saying he's going to live forever. Every morning, the dew of his youth is renewed. Jesus Christ has been resurrected to eternal life. He's not going to die and we're going to get a new king. He's always going to be our king.

The Second Address

That's the first address. The second address is in verses five through seven. This time, the Psalmist is talking to Yahweh. He's not talking to Jesus this time. He's talking to Yahweh:

The Lord, that is Jesus, is at your, Yahweh, your right hand. He will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses. He will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. He will drink from the brook by the way. Therefore, he will lift up his head. — Psalm 110:5-7

Again, note the unity of action, right? The Lord, Jesus, is at your right hand, Yahweh. The picture of Jesus being at Yahweh's right hand is essentially that the person at the right hand of the king was the one who carried out his actions, his kingly decrees. So Jesus is essentially going to be the right hand of God, carrying out his ultimate conquest and judgment and redemption of the world, and that's what these last verses are pictures of.

He will shatter the kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses. He will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. Listen, the bottom line of all of that is this: Jesus is coming back, and he's going to judge the earth. Those who will not bow to him willingly will be judged. But the good news is this—all of the forces of this dark world, all of the powers that work against him, all of the powers of Satan, all of the demonic forces, all of sin, all of death, all of suffering, all of sorrow are among the enemies that the Lord Jesus will crush when he returns.

And how complete will be his victory? Verse seven: "He will drink from the brook by the way. Therefore, he will lift up his head."

The battle will be over because you don't drink in the middle of the battle. You don't say, "Hey, let's pause this sword fight. I'm going to go get a little water from my water bottle and then we can resume," right? You can't do that in a battle. The battle will be done. He'll drink from the brook and he'll lift up his head.

Now, I want you to understand how intense will this battle be? Last week or a couple weeks ago, Second Thessalonians 2 was a part of our CBR journal reading and Second Thessalonians 2:8 describes this event in one verse:

"And then the lawlessness one will be revealed whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming." — 2 Thessalonians 2:8

How quick will this battle be? So quick that Jesus will defeat all of our enemies including the man of lawlessness with the breath from his mouth.

Application for us, CTK, is that I think oftentimes, while we're wrestling with the steadfastness of Christ's kingship, we also sometimes wrestle with the outcome. We fear what's going to happen in the future but we know what will happen in the future. Just as David knew what would happen in the future. Jesus is going to come and conquer all of our enemies and we're going to drink with him from the brook and lift up our heads in rejoicing.

Do you believe in that? Do you revel in that? Do you live out of that? If so, then why are we so timid Christians? Why are we so fearful? What have we to fear when we have the Lord Jesus, the eternal king priest who's going to cover all of our sins and fight on our behalf and beat all of our enemies with a breath? Answer: we have nothing to fear.

The Hidden Speaker

The last thing that I want to draw out from this passage this morning is the hidden speaker of this passage. I want to look again at Mark chapter 12, verses 35 through 37—that section where Jesus addresses the scribes. The point is that the Messiah wouldn't merely be a son of David. Listen to these words very carefully:

"What do you think about the Messiah and whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David." Then Jesus said, "Then how is it that David in the spirit calls him Lord? When he says, 'The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.' If David then calls him Lord, how is he his son?" — Mark 12:35-37

Did you catch it? What was David filled with? The Spirit. Note the trinitarian nature of this Psalm. You have God, the Father, talking to the Son, issuing eternal decrees, and you have David in the Spirit addressing both the Father and the Son and predicting the future prophetically what will happen as a part of their reign.

I want you to imagine just for a moment—imagine yourself within the Trinity and this conversation is happening. We're in eternity. The Lord, Yahweh, is reveling and excited about his King, Jesus. He's inaugurating his kingship. He's putting him on the throne, and he's celebrating his priesthood, and he's declaring that he will be a priest forever.

And the Holy Spirit says at that moment, "Guys, this is awesome. Can we pause this for just a minute? I'm gonna pop down to Earth about a thousand years before Jesus comes, and I'm gonna enter into arguably the greatest poet of all time, and we're gonna write a song about this. We're gonna write a song about it, and it's gonna be sung throughout the ages. I can't wait to sing about what just happened here, about you, Lord God, enthroning Jesus on the throne, declaring him High Priest forever. We've gotta go. We got to go down to earth. We got to get the best poet in history to sing about this. I'll be right back. I'll be back in time for Pentecost. Don't worry."

And he zips down and he fills David with the Spirit and David writes this Psalm. And then Jesus comes and in order to declare to the people his kingship, he says, "Hey, you remember that song? You remember that song that a thousand years ago? The one I'm unified with in the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit wrote about me. Hey, that song's true. That song's true."

And then fast forward, Jesus ascends into heaven and this actually, the first part at least of this takes place. And then Peter at Pentecost—the Holy Spirit comes back and he's preaching a sermon. What passage do you think Peter references in that first sermon in Acts chapter 2? Psalm 110.

This is a song that has been sung through the ages. It was sung a thousand years before Christ came. It was sung by our Savior himself. It was sung by Peter filled with the Holy Spirit. It was sung by the author of Hebrews. It's been sung by countless other authors of the New Testament. It has been sung by saints through the ages and this morning, we sing it. We reflect on it. We bask in it.

Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs. What's wrong with that?

I'd like to know. Because here we go again.

CTK, may we sing the love song of the trinity, rejoicing in the coronation of our king, his high priesthood, and his care for us, and his victory over all of our enemies. May we go forth singing boldly, not timidly, rejoicing so that all the world can hear this love song and be filled with the joy that comes from it.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.