Alright, Psalm 22. The reason that large, established,
faithful congregations exist is because the members continued
together from the time that they were very small congregations. Christ planted faithful members.
He gave them hearts to be committed to the work. And He grew them
together. And there are great advantages
to that. Great advantages because when you grow together as a family
of believers, you suffer together, you cry together, you rejoice
together, you overcome obstacles together, and the Lord's teaching
you all through those things that He's the One doing the work.
I was speaking with Brother Todd Nyberg when I came here to pastor,
not long after. And I was speaking to him about
it being a small congregation. At the time, we had about three
families. And Brother Todd told me that,
he said, I'd much rather begin with a congregation that size
and grow with the congregation to a larger congregation than
I would start out in a larger congregation. There's just so
much to learn growing from a small congregation to a larger congregation. And the reason most people are
reluctant to continue in a small congregation, and this is sad
but this is the fact, is folks look at the size of the congregation
and they look at the permanency of the building, and they use
those things to determine if the church is established. That's
just fact. That's what folks do. But that's
not what establishes the church of God. The true church of God
is not established by those things, but by Christ, who is our foundation,
who is our head. Christ is the one who establishes
His church. You can have a very small congregation
that He's established, that's firmly planted and not going
anywhere. And you can have a large, mega
congregation and He's nowhere around. And it's not established
at all. Not at all. What I want you to
see from our message this morning is Christ, our High Priest, is
our preacher. He's our preacher. And the message
is His message. And the work is His work. And
that's why His congregation is established. He establishes it. Let's read Psalm 22 and verses
22 to the end of the Psalm. I will declare thy name unto
my brethren. In the midst of the congregation
will I praise thee. This is Christ speaking. This
is Christ speaking. I will declare thy name unto
my brethren in the midst of the congregation while I praise thee.
Ye that fear the Lord, praise him. All ye the seed of Jacob,
glorify him. And fear him, all ye the seed
of Israel. For he hath not despised nor
abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither hath he hid
his face from him. But when he cried unto him, he
heard. My praise shall be of Thee in
the great congregation. I will pay my vows, my devotions
before them that fear Him. The meek shall eat and be satisfied. They shall praise the Lord that
seek Him. Your heart shall live forever.
All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord.
And all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee. For
the kingdom is the Lord's, and He is the governor among the
nations. All they that be fat upon earth
shall eat and worship. All they that go down to the
dust shall bow before him, and none can keep alive his own soul. A seed shall serve him. It shall
be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come
and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born,
that he hath done this." The Lord Jesus Christ is our preacher. He's our preacher. He says in
verse 22, I will declare thy name unto my brethren. In the
midst of the congregation will I praise thee. We preach from
the first half of Psalm 22 so often about Christ hanging on
the cross and Him crying out, my God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? But this second half is so very
important as well. This is what He declares He'll
do once He's risen. Moses said, The Lord thy God
will raise up unto thee a prophet, a preacher, a preacher, like
unto me, he said. He's going to raise him up from
the midst of thee, from the midst of your brethren, right out of
your midst. And he'll be like me, Moses said. And that prophet
is the Lord Jesus Christ. That preacher is Christ. He's
our preacher. He preached in the garden. He
was the voice walking in the still of the day. You say, how
do you know? Because God's only dealt with
sinners in a mediator. He only deals with sinners in
a mediator. Who came and spoke to Adam? Christ did. The mediator
did. He spoke in different ways through
the prophets and through different signs all through the Old Testament. Sometimes appearing in a pre-incarnate
form to men in the Old Testament. And then He came and He walked
this earth. And He preached the gospel to us when He walked this
earth. A Hebrew writer said, He has in these last days spoken
to us by His Son. That's who came. And then especially
He preached to us when He went to that cross. When He hung there
on the cross, He declared the justice of God. He declared the
mercy of God all in one place. The love and wrath of God, right
there, one place, He declared it. Christ did that. And He continues
to preach the Gospel to us from His throne in glory. The Scripture
says, Paul said, now then we, as ambassadors, as an ambassador,
an ambassador speaking for somebody, he says, as ambassadors for Christ,
we pray you in Christ's stead. We're preaching to you in Christ's
stead. But it's Christ preaching. It's
Christ preaching through His vessel. And He said, see that
you refuse not Him that speaketh. See that you refuse not Him that
speaketh. If they received a just recompense
of reward that rejected Him when He spoke on this earth, He said,
how much more then if we reject Him that speaks from heaven?
It's Christ that's speaking. It's Christ that's speaking.
When God's people gather publicly, We come together to hear the
Gospel preached. We're not coming together to
be entertained by the man standing in the pulpit. We're not coming
to even be instructed by the man in the pulpit. We're coming
to bow before our Kid, our Lord Jesus Christ, and to be taught
of Him. That's who we're coming to. And
it doesn't matter where He's gathered His people in His church.
One of His assemblies here, one over here, one over here, one
over here. It's Christ in the midst of the
congregation who's preaching in His church. Because He's the
all-present, ever-present Lord of glory. And He's preaching
to His people. So He's the preacher. He's the
preacher. Alright, secondly, the message.
It's His message. The message that's preached is
His message. Look here in Psalm 22, verse
22. He says, I will declare thy name
unto my brethren. That's the message. I will declare
thy name unto my brethren. In the midst of the congregation
will I praise thee. He's speaking to God the Father,
the triune God. Christ declares God's name Jehovah-Jireh. He in Him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. And what He came to do and what
He accomplished declares the name of God. And Christ declares
God's name Jehovah Jireh. We saw it last week. The Lord
will provide. The Lord will see to it. In the
mount of the Lord it shall be seen. And in the mount of the
Lord it was seen. is God providing. Christ is God
providing Himself, the Lamb. That's the message. Christ declares
God's name Jehovah Rapha. I am the Lord that healeth thee. They came to those bitter waters
and that's what we are. We're bitter waters in ourselves.
You can't, you can't, you gotta have water for life and we don't
have life. We don't have the water of life.
We're bitter waters by nature. But He threw in that branch,
and when that branch was thrown into the waters, the waters were
made sweet. Christ is that branch. And He
declares, I'm Jehovah Rapha, the Lord that healeth thee. And
by what He did on the cross and by His work in our hearts with
His stripes, what? We are healed. We are healed. He declares God's name is Jehovah
Nissi. I am the Lord your banner. I
am the Lord your banner. Christ is the banner, the rod
that's held up like Moses held up the rod. And as long as Christ
is exalted, as long as He is exalted on the cross, to heaven,
and in the hearts of His people, Christ defeats the enemy. He
defeats the enemy and gathers His people to that flag, to that
banner. He's our rallying point. I'm the Lord, thy banner. He
declares to us God's name Jehovah Sidkenu. I am the Lord your righteousness. We have no righteousness. Christ
is the righteousness of God. Christ is the righteousness God
has provided for His people. The Lord our righteousness. The
scripture says we have His name. This is the name wherewith he
shall be called, the Lord our righteousness. And then you read
in Jeremiah 33, 16 and the wording is a little different. It speaks
of his bride, his church, his people. And it says, and this
is the name wherewith she shall be called, the Lord our righteousness. We have his name. He declares
God's name is Jehovah Shalom. I am the Lord, your peace. We
had no peace, not in ourselves, not with God, not with one another.
But Christ came, the Prince of Peace, and He made peace between
His people and God when, while as yet, we were enemies to God. We were enemies in our minds
by wicked works. And He came and He accomplished
peace for His people, between God and His people. And then
He came and He gave us His peace. He said, My peace I give unto
you. And He made us friends of God. That's what Christ did. He declares,
God's name is Jehovah Shema. I am the Lord who is there. Where are you? Wherever you are,
He's there. The psalmist said, if I flee
to heaven or to the deepest sea or I make my bed in hell, He's
there. When He's in the midst of His
church or gathered His people, He's there. When we're alone,
by ourselves, and He's there. He's with His people all the
time. And He says, and I'll never leave
you, and I'll never forsake you. I am, the Lord is there. That's
who He is. Christ declares God's name Jehovah
Raya. I am the Lord your shepherd.
We'll see all about that in the next psalm. But when He takes
you and begins to lead you, He is the shepherd of his people
and he and he alone makes us to continually lay down in green
pastures. So that we're comforted, and
we're protected, and we're fed, and we're provided for, and we
have nothing to worry about. I am the Lord your shepherd.
Seven names. Seven, the number of perfection.
That's who our God is. And He's perfectly manifest in
the Lord Jesus Christ. In Jehovah Jesus, I am the Lord
your Savior. That's where these names are
declared. He said, I'll declare this. And that's the message
that He declares in the midst of His church through His preachers.
Now, what does Christ declare? Who does Christ declare the name
unto? Who does He declare the name
of God unto? Look there, verse 22. I'll declare
thy name unto my brethren. Unto my brethren. He says, I'll
declare it in the midst of thee, congregation. Christ declares
God's name unto His brethren. There are those that God chose
in Him. There are those that are made one in Him. There are
those that He came to redeem and redeem. There are those He
will send the Gospel unto. There are those He will teach
this Gospel unto. He says, I will declare Thy name
unto My brethren. Look over at Hebrews 2. a few
times lately, Hebrews chapter 2, but it bears repeating because
this is where the Hebrew writer quotes this from. He quotes it
from Psalm 22. Hebrews 2.11, it says, both He
that sanctifies, that's Christ, and they who are sanctified,
that's His people, they're all of one. So one they can't be
separated. Christ said, as God the Father
and Christ are one, so His people are one. I know that don't register. As
God the Father and Christ are one, that's how one His people
are with Him. Now look here. He says, for which
cause He's not ashamed to call them brethren. saying, I will
declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church while
I sing praise unto thee. He foreknew His people and predestinated
us to be conformed to the image of Christ for this reason, that
Christ might be the firstborn Son among many brethren. And He's the firstborn Son. The
firstborn Son got all the preeminence. The firstborn Son got all the
glory in the house. the responsibility of his father's
house fell on the firstborn son. And all the inheritance of that
house went to the firstborn son. You know, we divide up the inheritance
nowadays. And so, after a generation or
two, you know, when my great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather died,
he had 12 children. He left every one of them 650
acres. Now, every one of them has got
about 20 acres. You know, it just keeps dwelling
down. But not so in the Old Covenant. God gave it all to the firstborn. And He did with it what He would.
He gave it to His firstborn. The inheritance stayed together
because it always went to the firstborn. And so Christ is the
firstborn. The inheritance is all His. And
everything belongs to Him. And He gives it to all His brethren. He brings them in to live in
His inheritance, which is His. He's the firstborn. And He says
here He's going to preach this message in the great congregation. That's Christ's church. He said
there, He calls it the great congregation in our text, but
then in Hebrews He called it the church. It's the church.
His people, who Christ has assembled in His churches all over this
world, is His church. That's His church. The ones that
He said, I lay down my life for. He came and purchased the church
of God with His own blood. That's His church. That's His
church. He's the gatherer of it. He's
the preacher in the midst of it. He said, where two or three
are gathered. Not just where two or three just
happen to run into one another and assemble and start a work
together. No, where He has gathered them. Where He's the one who gathered
them. He said, I'll be there in the midst of them. Right in
the midst of them. From heavenly Jerusalem, He's
preaching through His preacher to His people. Christ is doing
that work. And at the predestinated hour,
He calls in the hearts of His child and He begins to teach
this gospel in our hearts. And He continues teaching us
all the days of our life through this gospel. And that's how He
keeps us assembled. That's how He teaches us what
our responsibility is to send forth this gospel. That's how
he makes us stand up and preach nothing but this gospel. That's
how he makes us support nothing but the truth of the gospel.
Because he's made us to experience the power of Christ preaching
the gospel in our hearts. And that's why we believe. Just
preach this word and he'll make it effectual. We've experienced
it. Paul said, as we have received
mercy, we faint not. How do we receive it? by the
power and wisdom of our Lord Jesus. That's how. And that's
how we don't faint. That's how we continue preaching
this Gospel. By His power and His wisdom.
And He says, My praise, My praise, verse 25, shall be of thee in
the great congregation. I'll pay my devotions before
them that fear Him. He's teaching those He's brought
to reverence God. That's who He's teaching. His
brethren. All right, now thirdly, the work that he accomplishes
through this gospel. He's our preacher. The message
is his message. He's declaring God's name in
the midst of his church. And then thirdly, his work that
he's doing through this gospel. What is that? This is how, I'm
trying to show you, this is how a church is established. It's
not in brick and mortar. It's not in number of people. It's in Christ establishing His
church. Alright? Number three, the work
that He accomplishes. Through His gospel, Christ commands
every believer to praise and glorify and reverence God. Verse 23, Ye that fear the Lord,
praise Him. There's His first command. Ye
that fear the Lord, praise Him. All ye the seed of Jacob, glorify
Him. And fear Him, all ye the seed
of Israel. There's three commands. Praise
Him, glorify Him, and fear Him. And when Christ gives the command,
when He gives this command, we will obey. Now, if I give the
command, it will go in one ear and out the other. You might
even obey on the outside, but you won't on the inside. But
when Christ gives the command, He gives the command on the inside.
He gives the command in the heart. And when He gives the command,
we will obey. Because He gives the power to
obey. And that's when we'll obey, when
He speaks. And through His gospel, our great
preacher teaches us why we're to praise, and why we're to glorify,
and why we're to reverence God. He doesn't just declare this
and not give you a reason to praise Him. If we're going to
praise Him, we've got to have a reason to praise Him. If we're
going to glorify Him, we've got to have a reason to glorify Him
and a reason to reverence Him. Well, He gives us the reason.
He teaches us in our hearts. Look at verse 24. For, because,
here's the reason, God hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction
of the afflicted. God has not despised nor abhorred
the affliction of Christ Jesus, His Son, when He was afflicted. Neither hath He hid His face
from Him, but when He cried unto Him, He heard." Now, we despise
God and His Christ. We hated God and His Christ. We wouldn't hear God and His
Christ. We turned our face from God and
His Christ. But God didn't turn His face
from Christ. No, sir. What that means to us,
brethren, is this. God sent His Son, His only begotten
Son, and He went to that cross bearing our sin. He went to that
cross bearing the wrath of God. We saw in the first part of the
Psalm that God separated Himself from Him. He said, In a little
wrath I hid my face from thee. He hid himself because that was
the penalty of divine justice. Separation from God. What is
hell? Separation from God. Not having the presence of God
will be hell. And that's what Christ bore on
that cross in the place of His people. But the whole time Christ
was holy in His heart and He prayed to the Father for the
Father to hear Him. He interceded for His people
for the Father to hear Him. And the Father heard him. The
Father heard him. When the hour came that he satisfied
divine justice and it was enough, God heard him. And God turned
to him. And God said, I'm pleased. I'm
satisfied. Justice is satisfied. I'm pleased. He heard him. He heard him. And
now you and I who are truly afflicted, Because Christ satisfied justice,
you and I who are afflicted, in all our affliction, God won't
despise us in our affliction. He won't turn His face from us
in our affliction. But when we call on Him, He'll
hear us. When we call on Him, in Christ's
name. When we come in Christ. In that
day, Christ said, you shall ask me nothing. All the time He walked
this earth, His disciples wouldn't eat anything, they went to Christ.
He said, in that day, when I'm risen, when I'm seated at the
right hand of God, you won't ask Me for anything. And here's
what He's saying. He said, Verily, verily, I say
unto thee, whatsoever you shall ask the Father, He's saying,
you can go to the Father. You can go directly to Holy God
now. And whatever you ask the Father
in My name, in My name, He will give it to you. He'll give it
to you. I told you about the time I was
painting nose art on KC-10s for the Air Force down at Parksdale
Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana. And I was a civilian,
and so I didn't get any respect whatsoever from anybody in the
military. And I'd go to the tool crib to try to get whatever tool
I needed, and they wouldn't even pay me any attention. They wouldn't
even look my way. And I come out of there one day,
and I had my head down, and walking back to the airplane, and I was
just disgusted. And some fella said, son, what's
your problem? And I said, well, I'm trying
to get tools out of here. I'm trying to paint these planes,
and I can't get anybody to give me the time of day. He said,
come with me. And I went in there, walked in
that tool crib with him. And the second we walked in that
tool crib, every person in that room snapped to attention at
that fellow. I thought, whoa, this fellow
is somebody. He was a full bird colonel. And
he told me, and he told them, everybody in that room, he told
them, when this boy comes in here, he's coming in here And
you look at him and you see me walk in this room. And he said,
whatever he wants, you give it to him. And from then on, I went
to that tool crib in his name. And whatever I asked for in his
name, I got it. I got it. That's what Christ
said. You come to the Father in my
name, you'll get whatever you ask for. That's right. And you
know He's not saying, you go up there and ask for a Cadillac,
He's going to give you a Cadillac. He's saying, whatever you need,
it's God's will to give, He's going to give it to you. But
He's saying, the point is, come in His name. Come in His name.
Alright, look at this. Through His gospel, Christ our
preacher shall successfully give His people all His spiritual
blessings. Verse 26. He says, the meek shall
eat and be satisfied. He says, they shall praise the
Lord that seek Him. Your heart shall live forever. Through this gospel, Christ makes
His child meek. He gives a new heart, a broken
heart. Christ makes us eat and be satisfied. He's the only one
that can make you hear this word and rejoice in the truth of the
gospel and be satisfied with the gospel. Until then, You just
preach it. Please preach something to me
about a current event. Please preach some moral story
I could learn off of Andy Griffith's show. Do something. Don't preach
Christ to me. But when He gives you the heart,
He makes you be satisfied with the gospel. Christ makes us praise
the Lord. He gives you an understanding
to see everything that we have, He gave it. And He makes you
praise Him. He makes you to seek Him. by showing you your constant
need of Him. And He makes our heart live forever.
Christ Himself being our life and our light. He does that.
And then look at this. Through His gospel, Christ our
preacher shall make His gospel effectual in His people no matter
where we are in this world. No matter where we are, He's
going to make it effectual. Verse 27. All the ends of the
world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds
of the nations shall worship before thee." Not all the world,
but all the ends of the world. Not all the nations, but His
chosen people in all kindreds of the nations. among all the
different kins and kinships of the world. He's got a people
and He's going to call them. And He says He's going to make
this gospel effectually in their hearts so that no matter where
the kindred are, no matter what nation they're in, they shall
turn unto the Lord and shall worship before Him. That's what
He's doing. That's what he's doing through
this gospel. And then look, through this gospel, our preacher shall
make it effectual in his people no matter who we are in the world. Not only no matter where we are
in the world, no matter who we are in the world. Some of his
people, not many of them, but some of them are rich and they're
influential. He says in verse 29, all they
that be fat upon the earth, they shall eat and worship. They shall eat and worship. Those
that have plenty, they're going to bow down and eat and worship
Christ. And then those who are poor,
verse 29, all they that go down to the dust, they shall bow before
Him. Whether they're high and mighty
or low in the dust, either way, if they're His people, He's going
to make them bow and worship Him. And not one of His redeemed,
rich or poor, is going to be left out. Rich, poor, or in between,
they're all going to be brought to praise Him. Alright? Through
His gospel, our preachers are going to make His people give
God all the glory for every aspect of our salvation. Each one shall
praise Christ that Christ is our eternal life. We are going
to praise Christ that He is our eternal life. Look at verse 29.
The last part says, none can keep alive his own soul. But
we have life. We have eternal life, He said.
So who do we praise for that? If you can't keep alive your
own soul and yet we have eternal life and shall never die, who
gets the glory for that? Christ does. Christ does. He's
going to bring us to glory in Him alone. Christ's select seed
is going to serve Him. They're going to credit Christ
for doing this work in His people. And they're going to credit Him
for doing this work from one generation to the next generation.
Look at verse 30. A seed shall serve him, and it
shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. He's saying,
Christ's seed, that's God's elect, each are going to be brought
to serve Him. And each are going to account that this work was
done by Christ alone. And we're going to declare that
Christ is bringing His seed to worship Him from one generation
to the next. It's Christ doing the work. He
said, this is what this generation is going to do. They're going
to serve Him. And they're going to say, Christ did this. Christ
did this. And then the next verse declares
that's what it means. And it declares also that He's
going to make us go forth and preach this gospel and declare
to people He's done this. And when He does, He's going
to make a people be born. Look here, verse 31. They shall
come. This seed that He's made to live
and this seed that He's made to glory in Christ working this
work. They shall come and they shall
declare His righteousness. They're going to declare Christ's
righteousness unto a people that shall be born. That He hath done
this. That He hath done this. Christ's
work. By Christ's work. One generation
after another shall come and shall declare the gospel of Christ's
righteousness and of Christ's works. And as we're declaring
it, Christ is going to make a people be born. They shall be born.
Do you see that this work is the work of our preacher, our
prophet, Christ our Lord? And our message to the people
is this. He's done this. He's made us righteous. He's
made us holy. He's called us together. He's
given us this gospel. He's sent us with the gospel.
He's going to make His people be born again. He's going to
bring everybody to glorify Him. This is the message that we have
to preach. His works. Not our works. His
works. And here's one last thing. The
reason He's going to do this, the reason He's going to certainly
do it, the reason that He's our preacher, and shall send his
preacher with his gospel." The reason that the message shall
be God's name, His wonderful works, what He's accomplished
through Christ Jesus, and the reason He shall work this work
effectually in the hearts of His people, just what He said
here in the psalm. The reason this is so is Christ is not only
our high priest, He's not only our preacher, our prophet, Christ
is our King. And He's able to do all this
work powerfully, effectually, in the world, with His enemies,
with His people, and in the hearts of His people. He's God. That's who He is. Look here now,
back at verse 28. For the kingdom is the Lord's,
and He is the governor among the nations. He said all power
is His. In heaven and in earth, it's
all His. And that's what the Scriptures
declared from the beginning, brethren. Isaiah said, look back
there at Isaiah 9 and verse 6. This is what we'll end with.
This is what the Scriptures declared all along. And this is what this
means. The text I'm about to read, the
message I just preached to you, this is what this Scripture that
I'm about to read to you, that's what it means. Christ is our
preacher. It's His gospel declaring His
great name, and He works the work effectually because He's
God our Savior. Our prophet, priest, and king. So next time you hear this passage
read at Christmas time, and they're speaking it about the little
baby Jesus, you know that that little baby Jesus is God Almighty. Remember that. Here's what it
means. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. a child
born, a son given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder."
The government is on his shoulder. All powers he is. And his name
should be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace. You know why? I'm going to get
to my next message. I'm going to shut up. I'll wait
and preach it to you when I get to my next one. All right, let's
stand together. Father, we thank You for Your
Word. We thank You that You've given the government of Your
church and this whole world and this whole universe into the
hands of Your Son. And that He's ruling and reigning
and none is stopping Him from working this work that You've
given to Him to accomplish. We thank You, Lord, that You
establish Your church We thank you that you establish your gospel. We thank the Lord that you call
out your people and everything's running right on time, right
on track, just according to how you are working it by your own
hand. Lord, we can rest. We can trust
you. We can know for certain that
your church is safe and secure and established, whether it be
two or three people or it be two or three hundred thousand
people. We know, Lord, that You are the foundation and the head,
the prophet, priest, and king, and Your will shall be done.
Thank You, Father, that the message is Christ and Christ alone. Thank You that the message is
God and His wonderful works. Lord, forgive us of our sins.
Forgive us for doubting and for thinking that for some reason
Something's in our hands. Lord, we thank you. This work
is your work. We praise you. We honor you.
We glorify you. We reverence your holy name,
Lord. In Christ's name we pray, amen.