It is not that I did choose thee,
Lord, for Lord, that could not be. Yuba-Sutter Grace Church
would like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Rick
Warda. We currently meet at the Yuba
County Library, located at 303 2nd Street in downtown Marysville,
California, on the corner of 2nd and C Street. Weekly services
are held on Sunday at 11 a.m. at the library. For more information,
visit our website at ysgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Rick Warda. The scripture for our sermon
today is Matthew 22, verse 41 through 45. While the Pharisees
were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, What think
ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto
him, The Son of David. He saith unto them, How then
doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto
my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies
thy footstool. If David then call him Lord,
how is he his son? Jesus had answered three questions
these men had asked in an attempt to entrap Him. But having answered
from Scripture with the wisdom of God and for the instruction
and comfort of His people, the Lord Jesus now asks these men
an opening question and follows it up with a final question.
His question is the all-important question, What think ye of Christ,
whose Son is He? I have therefore entitled this
message, What Think Ye of Christ? I would like to answer this question
in three ways. First, from the immediate context.
Second, from scripture throughout. And third, from the conviction
of scripture that is in my own heart. This question of the Lord
Jesus is meant to be a personal question. We must answer it from
our heart. Yet our question must agree with
the truth of scripture or else our question will be opposed
to the truth of God and we will die in our sins. First then,
from the immediate context, Jesus asked, what think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? The Pharisees
answered, the son of David. Their answer was a safe one.
It allowed them to be theologically correct without admitting that
Jesus was the Christ. These men believed Christ would
only be a man and only a king on earth. They did not believe
Jesus was the Christ. The first part of Jesus' question
opened the door to his second one. He said to them, How then
doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto
my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies
thy footstool? If David then call him Lord,
how is he his son? As I said, this question is the
all-important question. What think ye of Christ? All
other questions fade into insignificance compared to this one. We may
think a lot about ourselves, but what is important is what
we think of Christ. We may think a lot about God,
but unless we think rightly about Christ, we are still in our sins. Unless we know who Christ is
and what He has done, where He is now and what He is doing,
in short, unless we know the Lord Jesus Christ, we cannot
know God. Unless we know God in Christ,
we know nothing of eternal importance. Hence, whatever we think of Christ
determines what we think about all that is true and all that
is important. Jesus immediately directs us
to the answer. His answer comes from Psalm 110.
God's Christ is David's Son and David's Lord. Jesus said David spoke by the
Spirit of God when he wrote, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit
thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
Having quoted scripture, Jesus asked the Pharisees, If David
then call him Lord, how is he his son? This is the point Jesus
brought the Pharisees to face by his question. In the immediate
context, therefore, we see that God's Christ is David's son and
David's Lord. In other scriptures, Christ is
called David's son. For example, in 2 Samuel 7, God
promised David, When thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt
sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which
shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom.
He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the
throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he
shall be my son." Throughout the Bible, the Son of David is
synonymous with Christ. Remember, this is what the little
children said as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey. It infuriated
the Pharisees because Son of David meant Christ. In Psalm
110, David, as a prophet by the Spirit of God, spoke of Christ. He called him his Lord. Therefore,
the Christ of God is both David's son and David's Lord. To deny this is to deny scripture. From 2 Samuel 7.14 and from many
other scriptures, God the Father also says that Jesus is His Son. That makes Him the Son of God. Therefore, Christ is the eternal
Son of God, who was born as Son of David, and yet was exalted
as both God and man to be David's Lord. Consider with me what scripture
says in answer to Jesus' question. I want to answer right, don't
you? I want to know what God says. I want to believe what
is true. I want to believe what God has
said concerning his son. The first thing we learn about
Christ from scripture is that he is God's chosen, God's anointed
king, a man after his own heart. Remember David? The people of
Israel had sinfully demanded Samuel give them a king like
the heathen nations around them. In response, God gave them Saul,
a man after their own heart. But Saul had no heart for God.
He did all that he did for the approval of men. He was a hypocrite. He did not believe the Lord.
He served himself. He did not obey his word. He
hated David. But God was gracious to Israel. He found another man, this time
a man of his own choosing, a man after his own heart. God told
Samuel he had sought out a man after his own heart, for Samuel
13, 14. So he sent Samuel to Jesse, David's father. Samuel
examined all of Jesse's sons. But as Samuel considered each
son, the Lord told him that son was not the one God had chosen.
Not finding the one God chose, Samuel asked Jesse if he had
other sons. Jesse said, only one, and he
takes care of the sheep. Samuel told Jesse to fetch David.
As soon as Samuel saw David, the Lord said to Samuel, Arise,
anoint him, for this is he. 1 Samuel 16 verse 12. In the
drama, David teaches us about God's Christ. David was a man. Christ is the son of man. David
was a man after God's own heart. Christ was a man after God's
own heart. He did only those things that
pleased his father. John 8 verse 29. As God chose
and anointed David with oil to be king over Israel, God chose
Christ and anointed Him with His own Spirit to be king over
His elect people. As David took care of his father's
sheep, Christ is the Good Shepherd who seeks and finds and saves
and cares for his father's sheep. As David risked his life for
his father's sheep when he saved the lamb from the mouth of the
lion and the bear, Christ laid down his life for all of God's
elect to deliver them from Satan and sin and the curse and the
bondage of God's law, the world and their own sinful flesh. As
David killed Goliath and saved Israel, so Christ defeated Satan
and saved His church, the elect of God. As David fought the Lord's
battles and saved Israel from their enemies, Christ saved His
people from sin and all of sin's consequences. As David provided
everything in his life before his death to build the temple
of God, Christ in his life and death prepared for the gathering
in of all of his elect people, the sheep, who are called the
temple of God. Christ is therefore God's chosen
and anointed king over his people, to save them, to protect them,
to feed them, and to gather them as a dwelling of God himself. Jesus Christ is the eternal Son
of God who was made the Son of David after the flesh. Romans
1 verse 3 and 4. Jesus quoted Psalm 110. It is undeniable, therefore,
that Christ is David's son and David's Lord. He sits on the
right hand of God the Father. He rules in the midst of his
enemies. The Lord sends the rod of his
strength out of Zion. The gospel is the rod of God's
strength. It is the power of God unto salvation. Romans 1 verse 16 and 17. Zion is the church, the heavenly
Jerusalem, out of which the gospel is sent. The gospel is sent by
God to all men for the obedience of faith. Romans 1 verse 1 and
Romans 16 verse 25 and 26. Psalm 110 shows the second thing
God says about His Christ. The second thing we learn about
Christ is that He is the anointed High Priest. Psalm 110 verse
3 says, The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art
a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek. God swore
that Christ would be an eternal High Priest. This has huge significance. Men swear to establish the certainty
of their words. They swear by something greater
than themselves, such as the Bible, or heaven, or even God. But all such swearing by men
is sinful. But God swore by Himself, because
there is none greater than God. In swearing by Himself, He stooped
to give us strong comfort." Hebrews 6, verse 17 and 18. If God failed
to keep his oath, he must cease to be God. That is huge. God cannot lie, Titus 1, 2. He cannot cease to be God. But
he swore by himself to give us double assurance that the Lord
Jesus Christ would be the anointed High Priest of his people. But
note this, though his oath was recorded in Psalm 110, verse
3, it reflects a much earlier arrangement that had already
been made. In Hebrews 13, 20, God says that
the arrangement he made with Christ was an everlasting covenant. He calls Christ's blood the blood
of the everlasting covenant. The everlasting covenant is the
New Testament. This covenant was put into force
when the Lord Jesus Christ shed His blood in fulfillment of every
condition God required in that covenant. Jesus Christ, our great
High Priest, offered His own blood to God for His people.
He cleansed them of all their sins. Leviticus 16.30 and Hebrews
1 verse 3. Christ is both a High Priest
who made atonement and the Lamb of God who was offered. Again,
this arrangement and this choice of Christ as High Priest was
made from eternity. It is an everlasting covenant. The Apostle Peter wrote in 1
Peter 1, you were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ
as of a lamb who was foreordained before the foundation of the
world, but was manifest in these last times for you. Thus, Christ
was chosen and appointed by God from eternity to be the High
Priest over his people. His appointment never had a beginning
and it will never have an end. The priest Melchizedek signifies
this. Melchizedek was God's priest
who met Abraham and blessed him. There is no record in scripture
of Melchizedek's ancestry, and this was not by accident. He
had no father, no mother, no beginning, and no end of life. When God said, therefore, that
Christ would be made a high priest after the order of Melchizedek,
He was saying that Christ would be the eternal High Priest, who,
like the Son of God, has no beginning of life and no end of life. Christ supersedes and obviates
all other priests. God has no priests on earth today. All priests on earth today are
false priests. If the Lord Jesus Christ is your
high priest, you need no other priest. But if you need a priest
on earth, then you do not have a high priest in heaven, because
there is only one high priest who brings us to God. It is Jesus
Christ the Lord. God the Father set up, that is,
he ordained Christ from eternity as King and High Priest over
his elect people. But as Peter said, it was not
until he rose from the dead and sent his servants to preach his
gospel that this was made known to believers. Where God ordains
a priest, he ordains him for his people. Where God ordains
a high priest, he ordains him to offer gifts and sacrifices
to God for the sins of his people. Hebrews 5.1 says, Every high
priest, taken from among men, is ordained for men in things
pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices
for sins. Just so, God ordained Christ
to be the High Priest for His people, to offer Himself to God
for their sins. This was required by God's everlasting
covenant, because Christ's blood was shed before the foundation
of the world, and it is His blood that fulfilled the everlasting
covenant conditions. When Jesus gave the wine to his
disciples at the Last Supper, he said to them, This is my blood
of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission
of sins. Matthew 26, 28. As God ordained
him to be the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,
God also ordained him to be the High Priest who offered his blood
to fulfill the everlasting covenant. The nation of Israel received
the law under the Old Testament priesthood. The church received
the fulfillment of the everlasting covenant under Christ's priesthood
when he offered himself to put the covenant of God's grace into
force. The Old Testament law is a covenant
of works. The everlasting covenant is a
covenant of grace, because all conditions in that covenant were
placed on Christ as our mediator. Hebrews 9 verse 15 through 28
makes this clear. as the blood of animals put the Old Testament
covenant of the Law into force upon the people of Israel, the
blood of Christ fulfilled every condition in the everlasting
covenant of God's grace, and every blessing of justification
and sonship, the Spirit of God in us, eternal life, heavenly
glory with Christ, are all made the possession of God's elect,
the Church of God by the blood and the righteousness of Christ.
The Lord Jesus is a successful High Priest. By His one offering,
He accomplished all of the will of God. Therefore, He did what
no Old Testament priest ever did or ever could do. When Christ
made atonement for sins, when He perfected the people with
His own blood, He sat down. He did not sit down on earth.
He sat down in heaven, on the right hand of God. He took His
place as both High Priest and as the reigning King of Glory,
because by His blood He obtained the eternal redemption of His
people, cleansed them from all their sins before God, and fulfilled
the everlasting will of God. His work glorified His Father
and saved His people. He finished all that His Father
gave Him to do. Therefore He sat down on the
right hand of God in the place of the greatest honor and with
absolute sovereign rule over all things in heaven and in earth. Now, not only did God appoint
His Son to be the King and High Priest for His people, but He
made Him His prophet to them also. Hebrews 1 says, God, who
at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past to
the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken
unto us by his Son. Moses spoke before that God would
send Christ as his prophet to his people. Deuteronomy 18.18
says, I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like
unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak
unto them all that I command him. As prophets in Old Testament
scripture were anointed with the oil of consecration, Christ
was anointed with the Holy Spirit of God. As prophets in the Old
Testament were to speak only what God gave them to say to
the people, the Lord Jesus Christ only spoke the words His Father
gave Him to speak. In John 12, verse 49, Jesus said,
I have not spoken of myself, but the Father which sent me.
He gave me a commandment, what I should say and what I should
speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting. Whatsoever
I speak therefore, even as the Father said to me, so I speak. Though the Lord Jesus Christ
is equal with the Father, he made himself a servant to do
the will of God. Philippians 2 verse 5-11 Jesus
told Nicodemus, If I have told you earthly things, and you believe
not, how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things?
The Lord Jesus Christ came from heaven. He spoke heaven's words,
God's words. His words are life everlasting. Because He is God's prophet,
as Moses said, we must hear and believe Him. God will not speak
to us in any other way but from scripture concerning His Son.
He will not speak of any but the Lord Jesus Christ, who glorified
His Father and saved His people by His representative life and
substitutionary death, and now by His reigning sovereign rule. If we would hear God, we must
hear Christ. If we hear any but Christ, we
have not heard from God. God has spoken by Him. His word
is final. It is the ultimate and final
authority. Matthew 28, verse 18-20 Jesus
said, Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never
pass away. Do you hear His voice? Do you
believe Him? Do you follow Him because all
of your life is in Him and depends on Him alone? Do you trust His
salvation, of which He has spoken and fulfilled by His own blood?
Do you trust His sovereign grace? Do you submit to His righteousness? Do you come to God by His blood
alone? Do you bow to His sovereign rule? He is the one through whom God
has spoken to us in these last days. Prophets of old not only
spoke, but they lived out the message God gave to them. Jeremiah
wept over Jerusalem and Judah because God told him to prophesy
about their captivity. Ezekiel laid on his left side
390 days and his right side 40 days to show Israel that their
iniquity was the reason why God brought the Chaldeans to besiege
Jerusalem. Hosea married an adulterous wife
to show God's redeeming love for his utterly sinful people.
But Christ, as the ultimate prophet, preached the gospel of His atoning
blood and made Himself atonement for His people. He not only preached
righteousness, but He fulfilled and established the everlasting
righteousness of His people in His own obedience unto death.
He lived a perfect life, and He died a substitutionary death. All that He said and all that
He did was the will of God the Father, promised in Scripture,
spoken by Him, and accomplished by Him to perfection. He saved
his people from their sins according to the everlasting covenant of
God's grace. Jeremiah 31 verse 31 through
34. Now in all of these we see that
God answers this question for us. What think ye of Christ?
Whose son is he? He is the anointed prophet of
God who spoke and did all God gave him to do to save his people
from their sins. He is the everlasting High Priest
who reconciled His people to God by His own blood. He is the
King who saved His people from their enemies, who feeds and
protects them and blesses them with all spiritual blessings,
with eternal justification, eternal redemption, everlasting righteousness,
gives to them His own Spirit as their life and faith and every
grace. Now, we have looked at Jesus'
answer to his own question in the immediate context of Matthew
22. He is David's son and David's
Lord. We have considered somewhat of
the answer of God from scripture. Jesus Christ is God's anointed
prophet to his people, his high priest for his people, and his
king to rule over them. There are many other relations
and offices and characters of our Lord Jesus. But now, as a
sinner saved by His grace, as God has applied His words from
Scripture to my heart and to the heart of every believing
sinner, I will now try to answer Jesus' question, What think ye
of Christ? Jesus Christ is everything to
me. He is all, Colossians 3.11. He is God over all, Romans 9.5.
He is the King and Lord of Glory, the Prince of Life. and He is
all from God to me. God provided all for me in Him. God provided all my salvation
in Him alone. All promises and all blessings
from God to me are found in Christ alone." Jeremiah 23 verse 6 says,
He is the Lord our righteousness. and He is my all to God. All that God requires from me
I find in Him alone. His blood is all that God's given
faith to me finds as my satisfaction to God for my sins. His obedience
is all my righteousness before God. Nothing but His blood can
wash away my sins. I have no other obedience that
God can accept but His obedience unto death. And He is the One
I trust. I trust Him as God. I trust His
Word and His promises. All that I know of God I only
know by what I know of Christ, who He is and what He has done.
And I trust Him for eternal life. He has given me His Spirit as
my life. He has given me faith. He is
all my confidence and all my hope. He is the one I love. I love Him because He first loved
me, because He has forgiven me all my sins, because He has heard
my cry. He has saved me from my sins
and from the eternal damnation my sins deserved. His love constrains
me to love Him. And He is all my hope, 1 Timothy
1, 1. And Galatians 5, 5 says, We through
the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. And
He is my advocate. He is my all-satisfying answer
to God. He is my eternal mediator. He is my intercessor. He is my
all-sufficient Savior. He is my answer now before God
in my conscience, and he will be my only and all-sufficient
answer in the day of judgment. Romans 8.34 says, Who is he that
condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea,
rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand
of God, who also maketh intercession for us. and He is my surety. He made all my debt and my obligations
His own, and He satisfied God for them with Himself. And He
is my all-sufficient, all-successful Savior. He will save me to the
uttermost. Hebrews 7.25 He will bring me
and present me faultless before the presence of His glory with
exceeding joy. Jude 1 verse 24 He will give
me eternal life. He is my all-victorious, all-triumphant
Savior. He has saved me from the guilt
of my sins. He has cleansed me from all my
sins before God. His grace, according to His promise,
through faith in His blood and righteousness, will triumph over
all my sin. Sin shall not have dominion over
me." Romans 5, verse 21 and 614. He will give me the victory in
life and in death. When I fall, I look to His precious
blood, I come to His throne of grace, and I wait in patience
of faith by His Spirit, in hope of eternal life by His own word. You have just heard a sermon
by our pastor, Rick Warda. You may contact us by email or
by phone, or download a copy of this sermon by visiting our
website at YSGraceChurch.com.