The Better King Than David

This morning, we finish our look at the portraits of the Messiah because next week is Christmas, and we're heading towards that day. We've been looking at these portraits because they are predictions of the coming Messiah of Christmas time. And today, we're looking at Jesus being the better king, a better king than David, the great king was. You probably know that one of the oldest statements of the Christian faith is the profession, Jesus is Lord. For two thousand years, through times of both persecution and peace, Christians have summarised their faith, their eternal hope in that one statement, Jesus is Lord.

But what exactly is meant when we make that declaration? What does it mean to say, for us, Jesus is Lord? For many, the word Lord itself is archaic. It seems foreign. Lords and ladies refer to a bygone era.

For a person to be a lord evokes thoughts of the medieval period. So to call Jesus a lord may seem to us to express an idea far removed from democratic Australia in which we live. If I was to ask you, what do you mean when you say, I believe Jesus is Lord, what would you say? Well, I hope to answer that question when we look at our final portrait of the Messiah, the final sermon in this series by turning to Psalm 110. Psalm 110 was written by Israel's greatest king, King David.

Let's read what David has to say about this lord. Psalm 110, verse one: 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 sceptre. 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. So far, the reading. This is God's word. You might remember last week when we looked at Jesus being the better priest, the priest better than Aaron, that we referred to Psalm 110, specifically verse four, this quote of the king or the priest of Melchizedek.

This morning, we have the privilege to really zone in on this because we see the aspect of Christ's kingship also talked about here, not just His priesthood. The first point I want us to see this morning from Psalm 110 is that this psalm expresses who Jesus Christ is now. The opening verse of Psalm 110 begins with the words, the Lord said to my Lord, come and sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Now, as we read this, we may be a little bit confused.

There are two lords here. Who is speaking to who? What is going on here? Are there two lords? Is there just one lord?

Well, you may remember that in the Old Testament, the covenantal name, the special name that God gave to Israel by which to call Him was the name Yahweh. Yahweh was written with the four letters Y H W H. Over time, Hebrew tradition came to so revere that name Yahweh that instead of using that name as they would read and say out loud the Old Testament name of Yahweh, they would read it rather as the Lord, Adonai. And so, where this series of letters, Y H W H, referred to technically as the Tetragrammaton, as they would come to these four letters, they would call God the Lord. That tradition has therefore been sort of trickled down to the English translations where we could easily write Yahweh, but our English translators in order to respect that tradition also refer to Yahweh as the Lord written however with the capital letters L O R D.

So the one Lord mentioned in verse one is Yahweh. Meanwhile, you'll notice also in the same verse that the other lord is written in lower case letters. In other words, Yahweh is saying something to another person, another lord. Who is the lord speaking to? Well, a lot of ink has been spilled by scholars as to who David could have had in mind as he wrote this psalm.

Some think it was referring to Solomon on the day of his coronation as he took up the kingship after David. When David retires as the king, he writes this prayer to God about Solomon. In other words, David is lowering down his authority in his retirement. He's showing humility towards the new king, my lord, the new king. But if you hold the interpretive principle that the Bible interprets the Bible, we find in Matthew 22, verse 42, Jesus talking to the Pharisees and He asked them the question, what is your opinion on the Messiah?

Whose son is he? And the Pharisees respond to Jesus and say, well, he is the son of David according to the prophecies. Then Jesus quotes this psalm, Psalm 110, and says, the Lord has said to my Lord, sit at my right hand. And He asked them the question, if the Messiah is merely the son, the descendant of David, why would David call him Lord? Matthew writes that no one is able to give an answer to that question.

I mean, David would be the greater if the Messiah was his blood descendant. Jesus' disciples later realised that Jesus was this Lord referred to in Psalm 110. Not only because He was a physical descendant of David, He was much more than simply a son of David. What it means is that when we read Psalm 110, we are seeing David through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, foretelling of a person who would one day eternally be his king. He is referring to someone who is superior to him in every way, even as king.

Now, this lord is told to sit at the right hand of God. That is something also that not even David had the privilege of doing. As this Lord sits at the right hand of God, God turns that Lord's enemies into His footstool. To have enemies as your footstool was an ancient way of saying, you've conquered your foes. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs show the pharaohs sitting on their thrones with enemies bowed down before them as they rest their feet on their necks.

They have been utterly conquered by the pharaoh is what that is saying. And so what verse one is pointing to in its reference to Jesus, in the timeline of the ministry of Jesus, is that moment where Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven to go and sit at the right hand of the Father. Psalm 110 therefore is a glimpse into what happened when Jesus returned to the Father. It is a behind the scenes look at that moment. The Father, pleased with the Son's work, invites Him and says to Him, here, sit at My right hand on at the right of My throne to take this place of privilege.

And then when Jesus is seated there, verse two begins to paint us this picture of how God the Father begins acting on Christ's behalf to bring about the Son's victory over His enemies. God the Father, the Creator, the King of the universe is acting on behalf of the Crown Prince to bring His enemies to heel. Verse two: the Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty sceptre. This is speaking to that same Lord. And then this command, rule in the midst of your enemies.

Friends, what Psalm 110 is giving us is a look into the throne room of God where we see Jesus Christ as He is reigning right now. Christ is ruling over a kingdom now, not a kingdom that is to come. We see Jesus after His resurrection, after His ascension, but before His second coming. He's been given permission to conquer His enemies with a full arsenal of God at His disposal. When I was still living in Southport and I've talked about this metaphor before.

I would go home, I think from church every day, and I would pass this huge palm tree sitting on a roundabout. And it was the most majestic specimen of a palm tree: thick trunk, perfectly symmetrical palm leaves. And then around this trunk with these tiny, well-manicured, golden, Sheena shrubs and those purple shrubs just beautifully around its sort of trunk. Now, while these ground-dwelling shrubs were neatly trimmed and beautifully kept, they are hardly noticeable under the majestic palm that looms above them.

Far and away, it is the colossal tree that owns that roundabout. And when you say that Jesus is Lord, you are saying that Jesus is like that. When you truly understand that Jesus Christ is the supreme king over everything and that He rules unopposed now, your theology, your experience of life is inevitably influenced. Your belief in the doctrine of election is locked in.

Why? Because if Jesus is the supreme king, then He decides who He lets in into His kingdom. If Jesus is truly lord, He makes the decision. When we say that Jesus is Lord, we testify that He stands as a colossus over everyone. And therefore, Christianity can never ever be a twenty-first century therapeutic pick-your-own-religion religion.

You don't get to choose how much of your life you're willing to invest into the kingdom. Because if you profess that Jesus is king, you are admitting at the same time that you are not. When we say Jesus is king, we say that He rules. His edicts are mandatory. His wishes are our commands.

His tactical decisions are our marching orders. He reigns if He is king. But then, if we truly believe Jesus is Lord, then we will be filled with the incredible hope that the resoluteness of His victory, of His kingdom, it becomes our greatest peace. His strength of character becomes our strength. His victory is our victory because it means that His enemies, who in turn are our enemies, are becoming His footstool.

There again, that knowledge transforms the way that we understand our world, our future, our eschatology, our view of the end is radically impacted. If Jesus is truly Lord and His enemies are already now His footstool, why do we fret about what is happening in this world? Why do we worry? Why do we chase after ideas and thoughts and fret about how the world is ending? We worry because we think somehow things are spiralling out of control.

We worry because we think Jesus Christ is losing control. He is not. He is ruling in the midst of His enemies, the Bible says. Like that magnificent palm tree in my old neighbourhood, His enemies are the shrubs around His ankles. At best, they are ankle-biters.

They are not worth even a second look down. This is the great encouragement this morning. This is Jesus Christ as He is right now. But then, we see in Psalm 110, the kingdom as it is right now. Verse three: your people, David writes, 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.

Now, we see that the king has a kingdom. In verse two, the word Zion comes up, which in the Old Testament was the dwelling place of God in Jerusalem. But we know as the New Testament will explain that with the coming of the Holy Spirit, Zion is now in the heart of every believer. The temple is in us. Jesus is therefore not physically limited to a temple mount in modern-day Jerusalem.

He rules in the midst of His people. It is the church who are His people. It is the church who are the people indicated in verse three. The ones willingly dedicating themselves to the king. And as His people, we are shown to be distinct from the rest of the world.

We are not the nations referred to in verse six. What it means, firstly, is that there are only two types of people: those who belong to the kingdom and those who are His enemies. You are either in the kingdom or you are not. You are either within the borders of the kingdom or you sit outside of it.

What it means is that you cannot be a Christian and a half-baked, new-agey spiritualist. You can't be a Christian and live your life completely swallowed up by the anti-Christian lifestyle of modern-day Australia. You will either serve Him as king or you don't belong in His kingdom. This is because the church according to verse three is comprised of willing subjects. They come to the king freely.

Christ's kingdom is not made up of mercenaries that He's paid off, people that He's sort of enticed with goodies and blessings. These people love their king. They fight for Him because of their love for Him. For those who like a bit of trivia, Rob, I'm looking at you, verse three is one of the most difficult sentences in the entire Hebrew Bible to translate.

It is a head scratcher. And part of the difficulty is because it's poetic, it uses a metaphor that we don't really understand. The ESV translates it as, from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. The dew of your youth will be yours. That could probably, in my estimation, be better translated or more helpfully translated as your young people will come to you like dew.

We know that armies were made up of young, fighting-fit men. And the church here is presented as ready and able soldiers that will come to the side of the king as dew descends on the hills. It blankets everything and it comes without hindrance. They are eager. They are willing and ready to serve the king.

And these troops, the church, us, they are dressed in holy garments. Can be translated as priestly garments. It means that the king's people are consecrated. They are set apart in their service to God. They are holy.

What I like to imagine as I read these verses is that it's like an army on the hill with knights in their shining armour beaming the glory of God of this metal, these plates that they wear. They are holy and consecrated in their service to the master and they reflect His glory. The wonderful thing and the comforting thing of Psalm 110 is that this is us already. We are shown already to be holy. We are shown already to be willing.

Why? Because Christ has already taken His seat at the right hand of the Father. So often, we can be grieved by our failures with our battle against sin. But the fact that Jesus became king after His resurrection, when He sat down at the right hand of God, His kingdom being given to Him, His believers received their forgiveness by His work on the cross but they also received His holiness, His righteousness because of that work. So even when verse three in Psalm 110 talks of these young people dressed in holy garments, we can look forward to the New Testament where it talks of us as being clothed in Christ, covered by His righteousness.

We are these incredible priest-warriors that stand by His side in the combat of the kingdom. When we profess Jesus is Lord, we are not saying that we have simply been forgiven and spared from God's anger. We are saying that we are part of His holy army and God is the one who has made it so. And so even as we stumble into sin from time to time, the Lord is in the process of transforming you and making you more holy day by day. It means that you should not ever give up on yourself.

It means that when you sin, you have to pick yourself up and say, this is not who I am, that is who I was. It means that we keep working on those rough edges and it means that we constantly decide again and again to live a holy life worthy of the holy garments that we already have on. Remember, this is Christ's kingdom as it is now. People clothed in His holiness. And so if you are a Christian, please remember to see yourself for who you truly are.

You are the willing subjects eager to stand by the side of the king, standing against His enemies like knights in shining armour, reflecting the glory, the holiness of their king. And so we've seen who the king is as He is right now. We've seen the kingdom as it is right now. And then thirdly and finally, we will see what His victory will be like. When we reach the last few verses of the psalm, we see the final victory of Christ the king.

Verse five tells us that as Yahweh's right-hand man, Christ, the greater king than David, crushes the kings and the rulers of the earth. He judges the nations piling up the dead, it says. He is so fixed on bringing total and absolute judgment. He is so focused on that that he doesn't rest; verse seven says. He simply takes a drink from the stream along the road, raises His head again and goes after His enemies.

Pursues them to the end. This is the victory that Christ will have on the last day. There is a time coming, the Bible promises, when all the enemies to the kingdom will be destroyed. A time is coming where Christ will not simply be ruling in the midst of His enemies. His enemies will be removed forever.

These enemies, however, we are told are not weak peasants and nomads and villagers, they are kings and rulers. They are the instigator enemies of God. They are the great threats of the enemies. They are the ruling class who direct nations in their rebellion against God. In one Corinthians 15, the great chapter on the hope we have as Christians in the resurrection of Christ, Paul actually refers back to Psalm 110.

And he writes in verse 24 of chapter 15: he says, the end will come when he who is Christ, hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, all authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is what? Death. Christ is in the process of ruling now in the midst of His enemies, while continually extending His kingdom from Zion through His people.

But there will come a time when He says, enough is enough and all His enemies will be dealt with and removed. And the greatest king, the greatest ruling enemy is death. This is the very great news of the gospel. Jesus Christ wins over everything. Now, you may notice that we skipped over a very important verse, verse four in this psalm.

And that's where we're finishing this morning. Probably the most important verse here and that is the statement that Jesus is a priest in the order of Melchizedek. Now, last week, we saw that Melchizedek was a mysterious figure that comes up only once in the Bible before this and that is in Genesis 14 where he is described as being the ancient king of Jerusalem. Before Jerusalem was Jerusalem, Melchizedek was the king. But he was a priest-king, a priest, it says, to the Most High God, another designation for Yahweh.

This seemingly mysterious random figure blesses Abraham, the keeper of the covenant. The author of Hebrews says, who blesses Abraham? I mean, who bestows a blessing on a man so great as Abraham? Only someone greater than Abraham can do that. And then in Psalm 110, David prophesies that the Messiah is this priest-king.

We saw last week that Jesus, since He was both human and divine, could be the true mediating priest better than Aaron was. The old Levitical order was weak and useless, the Bible says, in that it could make nothing perfect. Its sacrificial system was not effective because it was flawed. It had imperfect sacrifices offered up by imperfect, flawed priests who would later die themselves. But Jesus' priesthood is always going to be better because Jesus led a perfect moral life and His own life is indestructible.

Meaning that He can mediate a better covenant forever. He has a permanent priesthood. But here in Psalm 110, we find that Jesus is both a priest and a king. And that is what the New Testament finally realises as well. I want to turn with you as our final thing to do this morning to Hebrews chapter 10.

And we're going to read from verse 12 to verse 14. And I want you to listen to the words of both priest and king. Aaron from last week, David from this week. Listen to the similarities in terms here. Hebrews 10, verse 12: but when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God.

The king sits at that position and He is waiting from that time until His enemy should be made a footstool for His feet. For by a single offering, He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified, those who are being made holy. Isn't that a marvellous verse? Priest has become a king forever. And so when we say that Jesus is Lord, we say Jesus is king not only because He's been granted all authority and dominion, not simply because He has won back a kingdom through sheer force.

He has won back a kingdom by being a perfect high priest. By one sacrifice, He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. So I want us to know this today, that Christ is king, ruling in the midst of ankle-biting enemies. We are His willing people living holy lives in honour of His name. And we are looking forward with hope to the day where He conquers His final and perhaps the greatest enemies, even sin and death.

When we say Jesus is Lord, we say with King David that there is no one greater than Him and we will bow our knee and we will bring honour and glory to the king. So as we wrap up this series in the portrait of the Messiah, we see how Jesus has always been at the centre of the Bible. Long before we even meet Jesus, we are told that Jesus is the true and better Eve, who will be obedient in the garden. Not the garden of Eden, the garden of Gethsemane. Who through His obedience on that in that moment, gives us obedience.

His obedience is imputed onto us. Jesus is the seed who comes from Eve to crush Satan's skull. Jesus is the true and better Abraham who answered the call of God to leave a comfortable and familiar land, his throne in heaven to come to create a new people for God. Jesus is the better Abraham because He would be the one to uphold the covenant between God and His people and He pays to uphold that covenant with His own life. Jesus is the true and better Moses who brought us the true and living word by becoming the Word in flesh.

Jesus is the true and better Aaron who stands in the gap between the people and the Lord and He mediates our relationship with God. And today, we hear that Jesus is the true and better David whose victory has become our victory. Our greatest hope, friends, is in the person of Jesus. And so are you willing to say with David that He is your Lord? He is the king, whether we are willing to admit that or not.

Let Him save you. Let Him bring you into His kingdom. Let Him give you the peace that you can only receive by coming into the kingdom of peace. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the incredible riches of your word.

We thank you that, Lord, that if we look deeply enough, if we will do the digging, Lord, we will always see Christ standing in the middle of your word. And we thank you, Lord, that this is our hope. Not that we should look at Eve or Moses or Abraham or David and think we need to be more like them. No, Lord. We look at them and we see that there is a better one that was to come.

A one that would be perfectly like them and then so much more. Why? For our sake. And so Lord, we thank you and we praise you that the invitation is there for us again this morning. To profess with mouths, with lips, with hearts and with minds that Jesus is Lord.

He is our Lord. We crown Him as our king again today. Help us, Lord, to see ourselves as holy priests in holy garments at the side of our king, willing and ready to work in His kingdom, to be a part of His effort at growing His reign, overcoming every enemy. We pray for those enemies, that in your grace, they will be moved from being rebels to being fellow citizens. We ask Lord that you will give us the energy, the urgency, the vitality to be involved in that work.

And then Lord, we finally say, because we know it is so precious, please establish your kingdom finally and very soon. Lord Jesus, please return soon. We cannot wait. We long for it. We desire to see the perfect.

We commit ourselves in the meantime into your service. We are your servants. You are our Lord. In your name we pray. Amen.