Sunday 05 • 27 • 18

Reading this morning is from Psalm 2:

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us." He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, "As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now therefore, O kings, be wise. Be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. — Psalm 2

The word of the Lord.

Good morning. It's a privilege to be with you here today. My name is Chuck Askew as Aaron mentioned, and I'm the campus minister for RUF at NC State and Meredith College. My family and I have been worshiping here for getting into ten years now, and it's a privilege to be a part of this church. But it's also a privilege to be able to guide us today as we enter into God's word.

This summer, we're going to be starting a new series here at CTK. We're going to be looking at the Psalms in light of Jesus, and we're starting today with Psalm 2. Psalm 2 is a coronation Psalm. It's a Psalm where the people of Israel would celebrate a new king coming into power. And it's appropriate for us to reflect on this Psalm because there's been a royal wedding recently. Some of you woke up really early last Saturday morning to watch Harry and Meghan get married. What is it that's compelling about that story? What is it that captured the imaginations of us?

I think part of it was the fact that some of us said, "That could be me." Prince Harry married an American. He came over to our place, our country, and he took her and brought her back into his home and made her to be a princess. And some of you said when you were growing up, "I want to be a princess, but how can I do it? I'm an American." But then you see that happen, and you're like, "That could be me. There's still a chance." Some of you guys are like, "No, that's not me." But I think there is a part of all of us that longs for that sense of royalty to come into us. There's something compelling about the idea of royalty because it's like a glimpse of us but greater than us.

This past spring, I had the chance to go to London on a mission trip, and I have a cousin over there in England. I got to hang out with her and learn about her life. She's older—she was actually born the same year as Queen Elizabeth. Because of that, there was a tea in her town for everyone that was born the same year as Queen Elizabeth. She went to this tea just thinking it would be a fun time to talk and celebrate the queen, but then the queen showed up. She went around table to table and greeted every single person there.

My cousin said the queen came up to her, asked her name, extended her hand so that my cousin could grasp it and hold it. Do you know what my cousin said? She didn't wash her hand for a week. She loved it. She had the chance to meet the queen, and she said, "I loved her. She was so kind and welcoming to me." She loved the queen because she was greater, she was glorious, she was royalty. But she loved her even more when she saw that she was like her. That's what's compelling about the idea of royalty—that it's someone who is like us yet greater than us.

This Psalm kind of helps point that reality to us: that this is why we need a king. We need someone who is like us but greater than us. The outline for today as we look at this Psalm, the way we're going to unpack it is with the framework of why a king is good. But before we begin to dive in and reflect, I'm going to pause and take a moment to pray. I'm going to invite you, in your seats, to pray along with me, that God would be at work in all of our hearts.

Father, we thank you for the ways that you are a good king, the ways that you reign over us and rule us with kindness and love and welcome us into your presence. As we gather under your word, we pray that you would draw our hearts deeper into fellowship with you. We pray this for Jesus' sake. Amen.

The Psalm that Danny read for us is a Psalm that was often used in worship in the kingdom of Israel. And the main way that it was used in worship was around coronations.

When a new king would come into power, they would use this Psalm to structure the liturgy for the coronation service. So it'd be something that the people would say in front of everyone to proclaim their loyalty to the king, but then the king would have a part. He'd have a stanza that he would reply back to them, and a priest would have a part that he would use to speak into them. And you see it in the way that this psalm is set up. It's set up with four different stanzas, and each stanza has a voice that speaks. Each stanza has a voice that communicates out a different truth so that way the people of God are learning and engaging about the idea of a king as they worship God.

And this psalm starts with the first verse speaking out a truth, something that is true for all of people, and it's a question:

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? — Psalm 2:1

That's the governing question of the psalm. Why is it that people rebel? Why is it that when they think about a king they don't want one? And the psalmist sees this as a truth. The psalmist sees this as a true aspect of the world that we don't like the idea of a king.

But the psalmist isn't the only one that says this. Simba says this in The Lion King, doesn't he? You know Simba, the little lion cub that didn't like the way that he was told couldn't do this or that. And so what does he do? He says, "I just can't wait to be king so that there's no one saying, Do this. No one's saying, Be there. No one's saying, Stop that. No one's saying, See here. I just can't wait to be king." All of us have that heart that we want to be king because we don't want people to tell us we can't do stuff. The Psalm says that this is a universal truth in all of us. If you go and look at the world, you see nations raging, peoples plotting, kings and rulers taking part in the conspiracy.

And what is the conspiracy?

Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. — Psalm 2:3

The way that our hearts are oriented towards God and to his anointed the King is to say that we don't want their rule. We want to get rid of God's rule in our life. We want to burst their bonds, free ourself from the shackles of his will so that we can do whatever it is that we want. This is a deep desire in all of our hearts. All of our hearts desire to be king, to be free of any restraints, to be the one who is royal and to not have anyone over us. And the psalmist says that this is a desire that we dwell on, that is a deep part of us.

It's interesting in the way that he talks about it. He says the peoples plot in vain. And that word "plot" that you see there in verse one is also seen in Psalm one. Psalm one, which is deeply connected to this psalm, reflects upon how the wise man meditates on God's law day and night. And the word that is translated here as "plot" is the same word translated in Psalm one as "meditate." And so what the psalmist is saying is that what all the peoples of the earth do is they meditate on how they want to be free from God's rule. They meditate on how they want their desires to rule and how God is against them. We are all meditating and reflecting in some way, shape, or form how we can get God out of our life.

Statistics tell us that 95% of Americans do this, but the truth that the Psalmist is saying is that 100% of Americans, 100% of humans hate God's rule in their life. We like the idea of God, but when God comes to us and says, "No, you can't do that," our heart says, "Rebel. Cast off his cords. Rebel. Fight against it." We look at God's voice in our life and we want to push it out of us.

The statistic is that all of our hearts rebel against God. We hear him speak into our time and say, "No, you don't have a voice here." We hear him speak into our money and say, "No, you don't have a voice here." We hear him speak into our forgiveness and say, "No, you don't have a voice here." We hear him speak into our sexuality and say, "No, you don't have a voice here." We want to do what we want to do.

The Psalmist says that this is the nature of all of our hearts. But he asks it as a question: Why? Why is it that we act this way? Why is it that our hearts rebel? It doesn't make sense to the Psalmist because he sees a different kind of logic. He understands it, but he sees there's a different kind of logic that should guide us away from that question, and we see this in the second stanza.

In the second stanza, we hear the voice of God entering into the world. And how does the voice of God enter into the world?

He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. — Psalm 2:4

We don't often see God laughing in the Bible, but anytime he laughs, it's usually not a good thing.

God is laughing in kind of irony at what he sees. It's not that God is mocking people or celebrating hurt, but he's laughing at the idea that someone could thwart him, overrule him, or defeat him with their power.

Think of a good example I saw recently in a documentary about Andre the Giant. Andre the Giant, best known as Fezzik in The Princess Bride, was primarily a wrestler—a huge, hulking force in the ring that people would always lose to. The documentary tried to help people understand how much his power put people in their place.

Arnold Schwarzenegger told some stories about his friendship with Andre the Giant. Arnold, the former governor of California and a huge bodybuilder—the strongest man on the planet—had dinner one time with Andre. He wanted to pay for the meal, but Andre didn't want him to pay. So Andre went over to Arnold, picked him up, and put him on top of an armoire in the restaurant—eight feet high—and then went and paid the bill.

When Arnold told that story, he didn't tell it with frustration or anger. He told it laughing. Why? Because he realized how ironic it was that he could stand up to Andre the Giant. Andre could do what he wanted because his power was that much greater. That's why God is laughing in this passage. He's not laughing in a mocking way at people's pain, but he's laughing because he's confident in his strength. He knows that he can do whatever he wants to do.

That can be a beautiful and encouraging thing for us in the midst of hard seasons of life. To know that we have a King who is not threatened by anything in this world, whose power is secure. Think about the people singing this Psalm. They were in the midst of a coronation of a king—a change in power. Instability was there in the kingdom. People from inside would often try to overthrow the new king, galvanizing their power to test it against his own. This was also the time that other nations would attack, thinking there was a break in power and a good chance to overthrow that kingdom.

As the people sang this song, there would have been instability inside and out. But how did they comfort themselves? By reminding themselves that there is a greater King whose power is unchecked, unquestionable, and unsurmountable in the person of the good God.

Our fears look at God as a tyrannical despot. Our pride looks at him as someone that gets in our way. But when we embrace the reality of a good King, it brings to our heart peace. To know that there is a good God in power frees us from the fear of instability and chaos and helps us to rest in his goodness. But that only comes when we submit to God.

This is what the psalmist points us to. What does it look like to submit to this God? Why should we submit? It's because we need a King to rule over us. In stanza three, the psalmist brings in another voice that points us to that reality. We hear a new voice speaking—the voice of the king. This is in the coronation ceremony when a king would come in and say these very lines.

I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, "You are my son. Today I have begotten you." — Psalm 2:7

That's a fascinating thing to say, right? It's perhaps a bit of pride going to the king's head, to say that God has begotten him, that he's God's son. Why would a king say this? Because God told him to.

We learn this in the story of David. David, the great king of Israel, wanted to build a temple for God. God had always had his tent for his presence among the people where the ark of the covenant would dwell. When David got his power around him, he noticed that God was in a tent. He thought, "I need to establish God's house," so he said to God, "God, I want to build you a temple." But God sent the prophet Nathan to David and said, "No, I don't want you to establish my house. I want to establish your house." Nathan says to David, "You a promise, a covenant."

He wants to establish your house and the throne through your children and in the midst of that, Nathan says to David that God says this: "I will always be a father to your children and they will be to me as a son." There, God promises to David and to all of his descendants that they will be like a son to him, that they will be loved and cared for by him. He will give to them his power and authority on earth so that they can say what they say in verse eight.

Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. — Psalm 2:8

God invests his authority and his love in a person through the promise he gives to the kings that come from David. And this is God's covenant with David and the heart of covenants in scripture are always sonship. Because of the promise that God gave to David, he could say and all of his children could say that God was their father. And so the king proclaims that he is the true Son of God because of God's love.

But if he is the true Son of God because of God's love, the people have to own that. And so we see in the last stanza another voice. We see the voice that the priest would have said to give wisdom to the people. In the last stanza, we see the voice of the priest guiding the people into a wise life.

Now therefore, O kings, be wise. Be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son, lest he be angry and you perish in his way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. But blessed are those who take refuge in him. — Psalm 2:10-12

In this last stanza, the psalmist communicates the truth that it's in submission to the king that we find refuge. It's in submission to the king who reflects God's power into this world that we find peace from the chaos and instability. And so the psalmist calls all people to kiss the son. And this kiss that is thought of here by the psalmist is the kiss of humility. This is how people in a king's court would come to him and they would bow down and they would kiss the hand of a king. Or if they were really demonstrating their humility, they would get down on the ground and kiss the feet of the king.

The psalmist says, "This is the path of wisdom, to get low, to submit ourselves, to submit our life, to submit our desires to the King, to the Lord's anointed." In Psalm 1 the psalmist says, "This is a wise life, to meditate upon God's law and submit to it." And in Psalm 2 we see the psalmist say that this is a wise life, to put your life underneath God's rule and God's ruler.

And so he says, "How is it that we find peace in this world? How is it that we find the good life, the blessed life?" It's in looking to the King and finding refuge in him. And that's the answer to verse 1. Why is it that we would rage against the Lord's anointed? We're just inviting into our life chaos and instability. But it's only when we kiss the Son that we find peace.

The Missing Element

But let me pause here and pull back. How are you tracking with this sermon? What is it that is going on in your heart as you hear it? How is it that you're thinking about this sermon? Is it kind of seem like white noise to you, or is something else happening?

You see, so far there's something that I've left out of the equation. There's an important variable that I need to bring back in, and that's Jesus.

You see, so far everything that I've said is good interpretation of this psalm. It's right. It's what the commentaries say—I checked. It's true. But everything that you've heard is something that you may have known. And if you're here today and you're not a Christian, it could have been exactly what you would have expected to hear at church: God is powerful. I better toe the line. God is gonna get me if I don't obey him. If I obey God, then I get love, I get blessing. If I don't, I get wrath, I get anger. And that can just seem like white noise.

But what it doesn't do is it doesn't move you to kiss the son. It may move you to submit to God out of fear. It may move you to submit to God out of pride to be able to look around at the world and say, "Well, at least I'm not like those bozos over there." But it won't move you to love.

When we come to the Psalms, it's easy to come to them and to read them as we often go to the Bible to read it for moral instruction, for moral guidance. To teach us how to live. But that is not what we need from the scriptures. What we need from the scriptures is not more advice about how to live. What we need from the Scriptures is Jesus.

You know, there's a powerful story that captures this in Luke chapter 24. In Luke chapter 24, this is after Jesus had died and his disciples are kind of scattered, and there's two of the disciples that are walking on the road to Emmaus and they're depressed. They're down. Their hoped Messiah, Jesus, had been put to death. They thought that's the end. And Jesus appears to them but as a stranger and he begins to walk with them and he hears them talking.

He kind of gets into their conversation and says, "What is it that you're talking about?" And they say, "Have you not heard about Jesus?" And they begin to unpack what had happened in the last few days. But then Jesus says, "Well, have you ever thought about it this way?" And he begins to take them through the Bible and shows them through the Bible how all those things were pointing to Jesus, pointing to the way that Jesus lived and acted and died.

And the author Luke tells us that as this happened, he took the scriptures and he showed them how all things from the law and the prophets were concerning him. And do you know what happened to them? It transformed them. As they heard Jesus speak—though they didn't know it was Jesus—they're like, "We want to be around this guy." They invited him back to dinner with them. They go back to dinner and then Jesus takes the bread and he breaks it and he blesses it. And all of a sudden they realize this is Jesus. And the text tells us that after they realize it's Jesus, Jesus disappears.

But then they look to each other and they say this:

Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures? Did not our hearts burn within us?

You see, that is what we need to have happen to us when we come to the scriptures. It's easy to come to a Psalm like this and to read it rightly, and to walk away thinking, "Well, that's nice. That's helpful." But that won't help you. The only way that we are transformed and empowered and encouraged is when we come to Scriptures and we find Jesus there in a way that makes our hearts burn with love for him.

And this is vital for us to grow in our love for Jesus. This is vital for us to be a follower of Jesus—to come to his Word and see him there. This is the only way that we can actually learn Jesus.

The Mystery of Love and Understanding

I was teaching a seminar on friendship recently, and I read an old book by an old Scottish theologian called Hugh Black on Friendship. It was a fascinating book, but there was a quote that struck me, and it took me like twenty minutes to sit there and to think about it. And this is the quote:

The joy that comes from a true communion of heart with another is perhaps one of the purest and greatest in the world, but its function is not exhausted by merely giving pleasure. Intellectually, what it means is the opening of a door into the mystery of life.

And then he says this:

The mystery of life is that only love understands at all. Only love can give insight.

He then goes on to say:

We cannot truly know anything without getting out of ourselves and entering into knowing another. A man cannot be a true naturalist and observe the ways of birds and insects accurately unless he can watch them long and lovingly. We can never know children unless we love them. Many of the chambers of the house of life are forever locked to us unless love gives us the key. Only love can understand after all. Only love can give insight.

That's a powerful idea—that you can have a lot of knowledge but you can't ever really know something unless you love it. And it's only when you love it that you can really enter into understanding. Only when you step out of yourself and step into knowing it can you really love.

And that's what we need when we come to the Scriptures—not coming out of knowledge but coming out of love and coming there to study, to lovingly observe like the naturalist, to find there the object of our affection, to find there Jesus. And that's the hope of this summer. The hope of this summer is to go to the Psalms to find Jesus, to go to the Psalms and look there to see how we can grow in our love for him.

Psalm 2 in Light of Jesus

And so let's go back to Psalm 2 briefly and see the way that looking at it in light of Jesus takes it from being just good moral instruction and hopefully moves our hearts in a new way. The first stanza, what did it tell us? It told us that we all have a heart of rebellion against God and his anointed. And in Acts chapter 4, Christians were experiencing that. They were experiencing rebellion against God and his people. They were being persecuted. And do you know what they did? They prayed this psalm. They prayed this first stanza:

Why do the nations rage and the people plot in vain? Why is it that the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel against the Lord and his anointed?

They saw this psalm and said, "That points us to Jesus. This psalm is about Jesus." And so as the world raged against them, they looked and saw that the world raged against Jesus. They were reminded of the fact that he was the one who has conspired against, that the rulers of the world conspired against them, the rulers of Israel conspired against them, the peoples cried out for his blood. And he took that rage onto himself, took their anger onto himself. But did it defeat him? No.

He came back from the dead to show himself the true king. And so in the midst of the chaos and instability that the new Christians were experiencing, they looked to Jesus and saw that he conquered death in his life, he conquered suffering in his life, and it gave them hope. But why was the anger directed against Jesus? It's because Jesus was the true king.

In stanza two it tells us that God takes his king and sets him on the holy hill, puts him to be king in Zion. And that's what happened to Jesus. Jesus was brought to the holy hill and made to be king. He was brought to Calvary and lifted up on his throne, the cross. And when the world saw it, do you know what the world did? It laughed. It mocked Jesus because it thought, yes, we have defeated God. We have crushed him by crushing his anointed. But who was also laughing? God was laughing. Why? Because in the death of cross, the world thought it had won, but God knew more.

For since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, but God was well pleased to the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believed. The foolishness of the cross is wiser than men and the wisdom of God is folly to men.

The world looked at the cross and thought, we won, but God laughed because in what looked like a great tragedy was the greatest victory and he enthroned his king in suffering and tragedy in a way that brought about a defeat of sin and death and the devil so that we can all have hope in him.

But Jesus is not just any person, is he? He's not just any king, is he? As stanza three points out, he is the true heir of God. The apostle Paul quotes this Psalm as he's preaching about Jesus and he says that this Psalm says of Jesus that he is the true son and when it says, you are my son today, I've begotten you, Paul says that's Jesus and we see that in the gospels, don't we?

When is it that God speaks in the gospels? It's at Jesus's baptism. When Jesus is being baptized, the voice of heaven breaks into the world and says:

This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased.

But we see it again later when Jesus is on the Mount of Transfiguration, when he's caught up, when his royalty is revealed, what does God say?

This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.

There, God is saying that this is my true son. This is the true son of God, the true heir of all things, the true king of all the world. So that after Jesus's death and resurrection, what does he say to his disciples?

Go into all the world. Why? Because I own it. All authority in heaven and earth have been given to me, so I send you out into it.

Jesus is the true son, the true king that truly is given as his inheritance all the nations. And so what do we do? When we see that, we have to respond. We see that he's the true king. We have to acknowledge him and so we have to listen to the Psalmist and say, how do we kiss Jesus?

Two Ways to Kiss Jesus

There's two ways that we see this play out in the story of Jesus. There's two kisses of Jesus that demonstrate the ways that we often respond. There's the kiss of Judas.

Judas was near Jesus. He followed Jesus. He heard Jesus's teachings. He had all the knowledge that you do and more about Jesus. But did he love Jesus? No. He loved his own desires greater than he loved Jesus. And so even though he knew a ton about Jesus, he betrayed Jesus for money because his desire for money, his greed was greater than Jesus. Our desires can keep our heart from loving Jesus. Our desires can keep Jesus at an arm's distance. So we may be in this room and we may know a lot about him, but we keep him away because we want our desires more than him.

But what happened to Judas? Did Jesus see this and strike him down with vengeance? Did he take a rod of iron and attack Judas with it? No. He loved Judas. He served Judas. He washed Judas' feet the night that Judas was going to betray him. And that's what broke Judas. Jesus's love was a rod of iron that when Judas came against it, when he saw his betrayal of the innocent Jesus, he couldn't stand it. He had to get out of this world so he took his own life. Jesus's love was a rod of iron that Judas ran up against.

How is it that you kiss Jesus? Do you kiss Jesus like Judas, or do you kiss Jesus like someone else did? In Luke chapter seven we see a sinful woman come into a room, a room filled with good people, Pharisees, rulers. They were gathering together and they were listening to Jesus speak. And this woman who was known as a sinner comes into this place that had to be threatening to her. She knew that coming in there could open herself up to judgment, condemnation, even death. But what does she do? She comes into this room, she finds Jesus, she lays her whole body down on the ground, and she kisses the feet of Jesus.

She, as a sinner, felt free to come into the presence of Jesus and submit her life to him, to take a risk in the midst of a place that could have brought her judgment and condemnation and bring herself to Jesus. And what did she find in Jesus? Jesus says, Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. By kissing Jesus's feet, by submitting her life to his, she found peace.

Judas held on to his desires and only kissed Jesus, not out of submission but out of obligation. And he found his life lost. The love of Jesus is a rod of iron that we will find either something that will bring us refuge and strength like the woman did, or we will find our heart breaking against it. And this is what we need to see because this is what actually helps us to obey the Psalm.

You see, the only way that we will ever really submit to God is when we see God not as this tyrannical despot that is ruling us with power, but we see God in the person of Jesus, the loving savior that comes to find sinners and to bring them into repentance, that comes to find us in the midst of the chaos and instability of life and to say to us all that I am your refuge, to come to all of us who are trying to break off his yoke and say,

Take my yoke upon me because my yoke is easy, my burden is light.

It's when we see that that we actually begin to say, Yes, I want that king. And this is what we need. This is what we need in our life, but it can only come through Jesus. It's only when we can submit our hearts and love to him that we will find a refuge in our life from the chaos and instability, from the fears, from the doubts, from the questions that plague us.

Only when we see he is the king who comes, extends to us his hand to welcome us with kindness will we find our hearts filled with what we long for. He takes us who are his enemies and does not destroy us but makes us his people. He takes us who are his subjects and invites us to reign with him. He marries us all and makes us royalty, doesn't he? He takes us who are the children of wrath and makes us to be beloved sons, heirs of the covenant promise, heirs to the whole world. He takes us who are lost in a world of chaos and invites us to take refuge and find peace in him and his love.

Now, does that make your heart sink? Does that make this Psalm jump off the page in a new way? When you see it in light of Jesus, I hope and I pray that it does for you what it does for my own heart to see the beauty of the Savior makes me want to sing this psalm with joy, makes me want to take parts of my life that I want to hold on tightly to and say, Jesus, please take it. Take it from me so it doesn't destroy me.

It's only when Jesus is the King that we see that we have a good King. It's only when we see his love that his love will constrain our hearts to obedience. It's only when we see that he's a greater King than us, but yet a King that is like us, that we will willingly give our hearts to him. And this is what we need to see in the scriptures. This is how we have to read the Psalms. And the hope of this church, the hope that I have for us all this summer is that we can see Jesus in the Psalms in a way that helps us to take our cold hearts and have them burn with love for him, that we can give all of our hearts to him.

Let us pray.

Jesus, help us. Help us because we want to hold on to the things of this world more than we want to hold on to you. Take our eyes. Help them to see you. Take our hearts and help them to burn with love for you. We need this. We pray this for Jesus' sake. Amen.