Now I intended these psalms,
the longer psalms have natural divisions in them and we see
that as we study them. And I intended to look at verses
15 through 29 tonight because of that. But really, after looking
at these four verses, I felt like we needed to concentrate
on them a little bit. It would have taken me about
four hours to go through verse 29. Seeing it's a school night,
I thought I might not go that route. But these four verses,
so much teaching. In the first four verses of the
psalm, we saw how the covenant of grace, God's covenant that
he's made with sinners, is established by God in the heavens. We see
that in those first four verses, and that's important. It's not
suggested by God, it's not made available by God. It's ordered
in all things and sure by God. That's why it's a sure covenant.
That's why the promise is sure to all the seed, because it is
a faith that it might be by grace. God has established that covenant
of grace without our help, without our input, without us meeting
any demands. Ordered in all things and sure,
that's why we can say it's our salvation. It's not an opportunity,
it's my salvation. And then, secondly, about that
covenant, we saw how that God chooses who has an interest in
that covenant. He said, I've made a covenant
with my chosen. And that's Christ, of course,
but also all who are in Christ. And so, God decides who is in
on that covenant. That's important. And that the
word of God, we saw this, the word of God is our revelation
of that covenant. We know that there is a covenant
with sinners because of God's word. And we also, it's the basis
for our faith regarding that covenant. Like David, we trust
God's word and we say it's our salvation and our desire because
God has promised. And you look at the blessings
of that covenant. God has promised wonderful things in Christ. And
we rejoice in that and when our faith is in, it has a sure foundation,
God's infallible word, holy word. And then we saw fourthly that
those for whom this covenant is salvation, they tell everybody they know
about it. David said, I'm gonna sing about it, I'm gonna speak
about it to all generations. Everybody, my children, my grandchildren,
And then in verses five through 14, when our second look at this
Psalm, we saw that God who has established this covenant is
to be reverenced and praised for it. He's worthy of all praise. This is the song of angels. This
is the song of the redeemed, that God has had mercy on sinners.
God has covenanted with his son and with his spirit to have mercy
on sinners and covenanted with them. promise them all the blessings
that he has in Christ. And so he's reverenced and praised.
And it seems that once the Psalmist got on the subject of reverence
for God, he just begins to himself be in awe of God. He just begins
to mention all the reasons why we reverence him. We saw that
all through those verses. And then now in these next few
verses, beginning with verse 15, like we did, he talks about
how blessed we are. to belong to this God, to be
in on this covenant, to be His, to have such a God as we do,
Jehovah. No God like Him. We can boast
in our God. We don't have to hang our head. You know, the God of religion
You remember Elijah, what he did when the idolaters boasted
of their God. He mocked them, didn't he? He
said, maybe your God's on vacation and he's not listening to you.
And it's the same today. The God of religion is worthy
of nothing but mockery. You ought to be ashamed to have
a God that's waiting on you. We boast in our God, we rejoice
in Him and have confidence in Him and we can tell forth His
glories without equivocation. So then in verse 15, blessed
is the people, blessed is the people that know the joyful sound. Do you know the joyful sound?
Do you know what it is? It's the gospel, isn't it? It's
the gospel. And there's a lot of speculation
in the Commentaries about this. Is he talking about the song
of the redeemed? Well, but what is the subject
of the song of the redeemed? It's the gospel, isn't it? Maybe
he is talking about that, but that's the gospel. That's Christ.
We sing of him. We sing of his precious blood.
Talking about the sound of the praises. But what are we praising
him for? Worthy is the lamb that was slain. It's Christ crucified. It's the
gospel. And so this is the sound of his gospel, of his word, of
his of Christ crucified, preached and sung and shouted and talked
about. It's the gospel. We sing of him,
we praise him. It's his covenant mercies that
we sing of. And this speaks of knowing the
sound. And this is important because
if it simply said, blessed is the people that hear the joyful
sound, That'd be fine, but we'd have to qualify that, wouldn't
we? Based on the whole Word of God, you'd have to say, well,
wait a minute, that's not just people that hear it with these
ears. You're not necessarily blessed if you just hear the
sound with these ears. There's another kind of hearing
that's necessary. Blessed are your ears for they
hear. If you just hear with the physical
ears, you're not necessarily blessed. When our Lord said,
blessed are your ears for they hear, he wasn't just talking
about the fact that the gospel had been preached to them. He
was talking about that they had a certain kind of ability to
hear. They had a different kind of ear, an ear blessed of God
to hear the gospel. And that's what this word know,
that know the joyful sound. This is life eternal that they
might know thee. And that's how you'll know him,
by the sound of his gospel. So a knowledge and understanding
of what was being taught them concerning the kingdom of God,
that's what he was referring to. To you it is given. He even
used the word know in that, when he said blessed are you, he said
to you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God. And so that's what's being talked
about there. So blessed are they that know the joyful sound and
now they know the gospel when they hear it, don't you? You
know it when you hear it. If you know the sound of the
gospel, then when a counterfeit is preached, you know that too,
don't you? If you know what, if you're a metallurgist or a
jeweler, you know what real gold looks like, and so when it ain't
real gold, that's obvious too. You know the sound, the joyful
sound, so it makes you know everything else as well, doesn't it? They're
among those elect whom it is impossible that they might be
deceived. Mark 13, 22. It's impossible. Why is it impossible for them
to be deceived? He said if it were possible,
these false teachers would deceive even the very elect. Well, it's
not possible. Why? Because they know the joyful sound when they
hear it. And they know an imposter when
they hear one. What a blessing of God. No wonder we praise him
and reverence him. No sound is joyful to a real
sinner. What's joyful to us? What causes
you to rejoice as a sinner now? As a sinner? Well, the sound
of sins forgiven. Not an opportunity provided.
Because if you're a real sinner, you know better. You know that
a real sinner by definition has no strength, no goodness, no
sight, no hearing, no capacity to avail himself of a mere opportunity. But a joyful sound to such a
sinner as that is the sound of full satisfaction made by another,
a true savior, a true redeemer who came and actually redeemed
sinners with his precious blood. That's what causes a real sinner
to rejoice, only a victorious savior and a finished work of
salvation wrought by him alone. And there's a dreadful sound,
too, to sinners, isn't there? Mount Sinai, when they heard
the voice of God, they were scared to death. They ran, they backed
off, said, we don't want to talk with Him. They trembled. That's the dreadful sound of
what God requires from those who can't produce it. The joyful
sound is the voice of the Savior when He came. You remember the
first words out of His mouth? Blessed are they. Blessed are
they, blessed. That's the joyful sound. That's
the sound of God blessing sinners in covenant mercy in spite of
their sin. In spite of the fact that they
can't produce what He demands because somebody did it for them. That's the sound of God's blessing
in Christ because of His obedience. Blessed are they because they
have a Savior. When this true gospel is revealed
to a real sinner, that sinner is going to walk in it, isn't
he? Gladly. That's what the second part of
the psalm said. Walking in the light of his countenance. Where are you going to go? Will
you go away? Go where? Go to whom? When you're a sinner
and you hear of the Savior, you're going to walk in his light. Walk with him. Walk with Christ.
And this next verse here tells us what the joyful sound is.
We've already said, but this confirms it, doesn't it? Verse
16, in thy name shall they rejoice. You see that? It's a joyful sound
to them, which means they rejoice in it. Joyful rejoice. But what
is it? His name. When they hear the
name of Jesus, The joyful sail, they rejoice
in his name. I like that little chorus that
says, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. There's just something about
that name. Master, Savior, Jesus. Like the fragrance after the
rain. Kings and kingdoms shall all
pass away, but there's something about that name. And there is
in there. When sinners hear the name of
Jesus, and they know it's not just any Jesus, it's the Jesus
of Scripture, it's the one who was called Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sin. And they hear his name, they
rejoice in his name. That's the joyful sound. It's
him, it's his name. Sinners love to hear They rejoice
in hearing of Christ, who he is. You know, his name is not
just Jesus. It's all of his attributes. It's
his character. It's who he is. It's a revelation
of him and what he did, who he did, what he did, who he is clearly
his attributes. That's your name. But what he
did is included in that name. Because as I quoted already,
the angel said you'll call his name Jesus. Why? Because he's
fixing to do something. You see that? What he did is
included in his name. He's going to save. He's not
going to try. He's not going to make salvation
available. He's going to save somebody. And so you call his
name Jesus. We rejoice in that name. And this next phrase here is
key. Because it shows that we're not like religious people who
go around, you know, talking about us rejoicing in his name.
You hear a lot of false rejoicing, don't you? A lot of frivolous,
shallow, fleshly, you know, thank you Jesus this and praise the
Lord that. Well, is that what we're doing?
Is that how we are? No, there's substance to our
rejoicing. Look at it. We are rejoicing
all the way to heaven, he said. Because of His righteousness. We have something substantial
to rejoice in. Because of Christ. Christ's righteousness
is our righteousness. Our righteousness is not like
His. It is His. You see that? There's just one
righteousness. And it's His. But it's also mine. Because He imputed it to me.
by grace through faith. Christ, our representative, is
our righteousness. Think about it in that sense.
Just as Adam, we sinned in Adam and died in Adam. Well, Christ
came down here and represented us like Adam did, only in a positive
way. He did everything good and right
and perfect on our behalf. He lived perfectly as my representative. He represented me perfectly,
but it is also his obedience unto death. Even the death of
the cross. Not just the righteous deeds
that he did, but he obeyed unto death. The scripture says the
Lord Jesus. Said this in John 1017. Therefore, does my father love
me? because I lay down my life. Because I lay down my life that
I might take it again. So there's his death, his soul-redeeming,
sin-atoning death. And the Lord Jesus is saying,
my father loves me because I obeyed him unto death, because I came
and accomplished the work he sent me to do. And I guarantee
you this, if God loves you, He loves you for the same reason
because Christ laid down his life and took it up again. God exalted his son. Because of his obedience and
suffering. I know that God also the reason Christ laid down his
life is because God loved us. From the beginning. But also
know this, if God loves him because he laid down his life. He loves
me because Christ laid down his life. And then God exalted his
son, and this is what we're talking about. He exalts. Verse 16 there. In thy name shall they rejoice
all the day, and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted. Think
about that concerning Christ now. God, why is he exalted? Listen to Philippians 2.9. Wherefore God also hath highly
exalted him. And given him a name which is
above every name. So Christ is exalted by God and
it says wherefore God was that wherefore therefore. It's referring
to verse eight. Of that passage Philippians 2
8 listen to this and being found in fashion as a man. He humbled
himself and became obedient unto death. Obedient. In everything. Obedient as a
boy, as a child. I must be about my father's business.
Obedient always and up to and including his death on the cross. You see that? Obedient unto death.
From the beginning unto the end. From start to finish, obedient
to his father. Wherefore? You see that? He being
found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross, wherefore he's exalted. So why are we exalted? Because
of his obedience unto death. Because of his righteousness. That's what the psalmist is saying.
In his righteousness, we're exalted. Not because of anything we do.
Because of his righteous obedience up to and including his offering
of himself for our sins We're gonna reign with him We're
17 For thou art the glory of their strength This is interesting now. First
of all, what does this mean? The glory of our strength? What
is the glory of your strength? The glory of my strength. Well,
let's talk about our strength. And the horn or power is referred
to in the next phrase in that favor, our horn shall be exalted. So strength and horn. refer to
our power, our ability, our performance, our status. What is our power? Well, I know
this from all of scripture. It's not talking about the power
of the strength of the flesh. I know that God has made foolish
the wisdom of this world and the power of this world is not
to be gloried in, let not the mighty man glory in his might. But this is spiritual might. It's not fleshly power, strength.
This is spiritual strength. And what is that? Well, it has
to do with faith, doesn't it? Scripture talks about Because
of the faith that God gives to his people, they do exploits,
it says in the scripture. By faith, Moses, by faith, Abraham,
by faith, Noah, by faith, Enoch. And so it has to do with faith,
it has to do with our praise of him, our worshiping of him.
It's our spiritual ability to please God, to magnify God, to
serve God. Certainly not talking about the
strength of the flesh, but it's the strength, the vitality of
the spirit. The flesh wars against the spirit
and the spirit against the flesh. Well, the spirit's got to have
some strength in order to war against the flesh. And it does,
we do. The spiritual us. And it says here, it's beautiful
when that happens. The beauty, the beauty of our
strength. Paul said, when I see your faithfulness,
I rejoice. I thank God for it. Didn't he
say that? Thank God for it. When Barnabas in Acts chapter
11 came to Antioch, it says he saw the grace of God. How do you see the grace of God?
Well, I'll tell you how. He looked at God's people, worshiping
God, believing on Christ, preaching the gospel, rejoicing in the
gospel, serving Him, Magnifying Him. That's what we're talking
about. And it says, He saw the grace of God and He was glad.
What did He see? He saw what we're talking about
in our text. And the word glory there is beauty. The beauty of their strength.
He saw that and He was glad. When you see that beauty then,
what are you looking at? When you look at God's people
and you say, He's not like the world. He worships God. He loves God.
He serves God. He believes on Christ. And you
see the beauty of that? What are you looking at? Thou
art the beauty of their strength. You see in Christ, don't you?
You see in Christ. Christ said to that one in Ezekiel
16, that little dead baby, filthy and vile and cast out, this is
Christ speaking. He said, thy renown went forth
among the heathen for that beauty. For it was perfect through my
comeliness, my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the
Lord God. There's the strength, the beauty
of our strength right there, Christ. The one who had been so nasty
and filthy and hopeless, now beautiful, beautiful even to
God now, even to God. In the perfection of Christ's
righteousness and glory, not in the flesh, not in ourselves,
even as believers, but in Christ. Christ is the beauty of our strength
now. If we have any ability to do
anything, love, serve, praise, worship, obey, it's Christ. And know as He is, He is the
beauty of our strength. He doesn't teach us how to be
beautiful. And leave it up to us. He is our beauty. And our
strength. And the beauty of our strength.
And the lifting up of the horn there in that last part of that
verse, that's an expression describing pride and confidence. Let me
show you that in the scripture. Listen to this passage. Now you
can turn there of course, Psalm 75 if you want to turn there,
but listen. This passage, it regards the negative side of
lifting up your horn. And it'll teach us, I think it'll
help us to know what this is talking about, the lifting up
of the horn. Psalm 75, four. I said unto the fools, deal not
foolishly, and to the wicked, lift not up the horn. Lift not
up your horn on high. Speak not with a stiff neck,
for promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west,
nor from the south, but God is the judge. He put it down one
and set it up another. You see that? Our verse there
in Psalm 89 talks about, in thy favor, our horn shall be lifted
up or exalted. Well, here's the negative side
of that. Don't lift up your horn. And here's why. Promotion doesn't
come from your efforts. It doesn't come from this life,
from this world. It comes from God. And so the
reason these ones were lifted up is because of promotion, whatever
that means. We know how we use that word. I got a promotion on my job.
The word here is to be successful, to be well-respected, to be exalted
in this life. Promotion. When a sinner is exalted
in some way in this earth, whether given some authority in this
world, or whether he's prosperous, and he lifts up the horn, to
show everyone, here I am, rich and famous and successful and
somebody to be reckoned with. That's what the lifting up of
the horn is, to show everyone how wonderful he is. And this
would describe Nebuchadnezzar before he met the Lord Jesus
Christ. You remember that? In Daniel 4.30, he said, is not
this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom
by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty?
That's lifting up the horn. And so what our verse is saying
is this, when the world asks us, when the world looks to us,
the believer, and says, what have you got to show for yourself?
What are you proud of? What are you boasting in? What
is your confidence? You know what our answer is?
God loves me. You see it in the favor of God.
I've got God's blessing. You can keep all that other stuff.
God smiles upon me. That's what I glory. How about
you? You see that? Isn't that wonderful? I have nothing to boast of. No
accomplishment of my own. I'm thankful that there are those
in this world who love me and in the right sense believe in
me. They trust me. They believe in
me. They have some confidence in me. But you know what? There's just not much to us,
is there? Have you found that out yet? I'm still finding that
out. I know that better than I did
five years ago. And I hope I'll know it better tomorrow than
I do today. There's not much to us now. But you know what? Would I be
going too far to say that God is proud of me? Does not he say, well done, well
done? That's my glory right there.
I don't lift up myself. I don't lift up my horn. His
favor is what I boast in, what I glory in. He prepares a table
for me in the presence of my enemies. Well done, thou good and faithful
servant. Not much else matters to a believer, does it? You need
the approval of this world? You need to be successful in
this world? And you know what I'm saying. Let me say this. This is life and death now. This
is life and death. Is it accomplishment and the
approval of this world that you seek? Or is it the favor of God? Because you're not going to have
both. And let me make that clear now. You may very well be quite
successful in this world and still have the favor of God,
but you're not going to glory in both. You're not going to have both
in that sin. You can't serve two gods. You're not going to
serve God and man. It's going to be you're lifting
up your horn. Look at me. Look at what I've
accomplished. Look at what I've done. Or look, God smiles on
me. God has favor toward me. God
has blessed me in Christ. And none of this other stuff
much matters to me. I pray I can say that honestly. Don't you? But that's life and death now. It's a matter of who your God
is. Is it you or him? It always comes back to that,
doesn't it? Verse 18, finally, for the Lord is our defense,
and the Holy One of Israel is our King. My defense. He's my legal defense,
and I need that. I got legal problems with God
by nature. I need a defense. I need a mediator. I need one who can stand between
me and God and make things right between us. And he pleads his own righteousness
and his own precious blood before the bar of God's justice. You
understand that we got to have that. Christ is the only one
that can satisfy God and save me. A perfect media. He can do what God requires in
my place, in my stead, satisfy God's justice perfectly, and
make me everything I'm not. At the same time, with one offering
for sin, he perfected forever everybody he sanctified. And
all is well between me and God. He's my defense in that sense.
He's my defense against every enemy that would harm me. Everyone,
earthly, spiritual. Spiritual wickedness in high
places. My neighbor, whoever. Don't worry
too much about it. Because he's my defense now,
he just is. He's my defense against my own
self-destructive nature. He defends me against myself.
My own sinful black heart, my own proneness to wander and fall. He's my defense. And he's my king. I don't need much else. The Holy
One of Israel, is my king, the holy one of Israel. That's
Jesus Christ, the righteous. He's my king. And this is important
now because we're talking about the covenant through this whole
song from the beginning. We're talking about the covenant.
And he is my king. What does that have to do with
that? Well, you know, he doesn't just wish for me blessing. He commands it. We saw that recently. We looked at Psalm 133 not too
long ago. Let me read it to you again.
Psalm 133, 1. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren
to dwell together in unity, for God's people to be a family. How beautiful and how enjoyable,
how good it is. It's like the precious ointment
upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard,
that went down to the skirts of his garments. As the dew of
Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for
there, here's why. Here's why it's beautiful. Here's
why it's like that. Here's why it's wonderful. It
has a wonderful smell, wonderful fragrance. Why it's precious,
that ointment was precious. It was unique, there was nothing
else like it. And here's why that's true of God's church.
For there, in Mount Zion, in his church, the Lord commanded
the blessing. Even life, forevermore, commanded
it. He doesn't just desire blessing,
he wants to bless you. No, he don't. No, he don't. You see, this covenant of grace
that this psalm starts off talking about, it's not just God wanting
to bless me. It is my sovereign king from
the very throne of heaven commanding that I be blessed. He has sent
forth the inalterable, infallible decree. Chris Cunningham is going
to be blessed. And what that means is life.
Life in every sense of the word. We don't even know what life
is, do we? The only inkling we have of what
life even is, is that we know Christ. I know that he is life.
He is the way, the truth, and he's the life. And by his grace, I submit to
him. He's my king in this sense. By his grace, I pledge my allegiance
to him. I commit myself to him. Serve
him. That's what people do for their
king. They serve him. They say, what would you have
me do? That's what Saul said. When he realized who the king
was, when he was knocked off of his high horse and realized
who the king is, the Lord Jesus Christ, he said, what would you
have me do? Is that us? And because his is a throne of
mercy, grace, and peace, and joy, and life. We do so gladly,
don't we? We serve Him, worship Him, commit
ourselves to Him, pledge our allegiance to Him. We see Christ
crucified with a sign over His head. This is Jesus, the King
of His people. And we bow. By His grace, we
bow.