Amen, I'm in Acts chapter 13. I'm going to be reading a few
verses starting at verse 32 I'll go through verse 32 all the way
to verse 40 and then we'll come back and work through point by
point to grasp if you will the final portion of the Apostles
sermon to the synagogue in Pisidia and So we read in verse 31 or
verse 32 And we declare unto you glad tidings How that the
promise which was made unto the fathers god hath fulfilled the
same unto us their children In that he hath raised up jesus
again as it is also written in the second psalm you are my son
this day have i begotten thee And as concerning that he raised
him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption,
he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of
David. Wherefore, he said also in another psalm, thou shalt
not suffer thine holy one to see corruption. For David, after
he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep
and was laid unto his fathers and saw corruption. but he whom
God raised again saw no corruption. Be it known unto you, therefore,
men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you
the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified
from all things from which you could not be justified by the
law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest that
come upon you which is spoken of in the prophets. Verse 41
is his argument. Behold ye despisers and wonder
and perish. For I will work a work in your
days, a work in which you shall in no wise believe, though a
man declare it unto you. Thus is the reading of God's
word. The way we're gonna approach this is to look at this last
portion of scripture, verses 32 through verse 40, as the end of the apostles sermon. And we've been working through
points nine and 10 last week. So if you will pull up point
number nine, just so that you guys can have a framework. Christ
died according to the scriptures. That was one of Paul's major
points after he opened up his presentation, dealing with what
we call biblical theology, a synopsis of the history of Israel and
the promises given to them as verse 32 of this man see that
is David. Have God, according to his promise,
raised unto Israel a what? Savior? His name is what? Jesus. That's if you have your Bibles
open with me. The PowerPoint not gonna always quickly jump
there, but you should have your Bibles open in your lap. One
of the things I told you is the devil is seeking to take the
scriptures away from Christians today, where they're listening
and pretending that they're hearing, but they don't even have their
Bibles in front of them. You can't learn a thing if your Bible
is not in front of you. I could be lying to you. I remember
saying this to a church 3,000 miles away about 15 years ago. They were shocked. Never invited
me back. But it's true. If you think you're
going to do a Bible study and not bring your Bible with you,
you are in bad shape. And if you think that you're
going to learn, actually learn accurately biblical truth without
hearing and seeing at the same time, having the precious privilege
of the text in front of you, you're playing games with God.
So from now on, bring your Bible with you. This is called Grace
Bible Church. And we took that name advisedly,
not because it was easy, but because the message of the scriptures
is grace. And the source of our salvation
is a book we call the Biblios, the Bible, which tells us about
God accurately and with verity. And I want to make sure that
you guys are able to grow. So make sure when you start going
to anybody's church, you take your Bible. Because I could be
wrong by accident. And they could be wrong by accident.
Anywhere it goes, we can be wrong. So when I'm saying something,
you look down at the text and I say something contrary to the
text, God has safeguarded you. But if you leave your Bible at
home, you're not safeguarded at all. You can be hoodwinked.
So I'm going to repeat this. What the Apostle Paul is doing
now, he's closing out the last two or three major points in
his discourse, in his sermon, in Pisidia. Pisidia is the upper
regions of Asia Minor in Paul's first missionary journey. This
is where we are. He will take his second missionary
journey after he confronts the apostles. let's let them know
how God is working through him, but he's preaching now to a synagogue
of Jews and proselytes that is Jews and Gentiles who are all
professing to be believers of Yahweh our Jehovah Jehovah God
under the Old Testament construct and they are being confronted
by Paul and Barnabas because Paul and Barnabas are missionaries
and who are sent apostolically to all of the Jewish synagogues
for them to hear that their Bible and the promises that their Bible
yields has come to pass. So this is actually a real privilege
for this synagogue in Pisidia. because God has brought to them
men who can tell them with authority that the promises that your Bible,
the Tanakh, the Torah, the Pentateuch has promised has come to pass
and that we are witnesses of the things of which you have
been hearing if you haven't heard them and that's this. Of this man's seed, that is David,
hath God according to his promise Raised unto Israel and when he
uses that term raised unto Israel, it's a monarchial term That means
a king a king has been established. God is raised unto Israel a savior
and his name is Jesus. And Paul is using strategic terminology
when he frames it that way in verse 23. He continues to build
his argument about the coming of Christ, the work of John the
Baptist, the witness of Jesus, the crucifixion of Jesus, the
death of Jesus. And now he starts in verse 32
this way. After letting them know in verse 31, we are witnesses
of everything you guys have heard, how that Jesus was killed by
our Jewish brethren, how that he was raised again from the
dead, verse 31. And last line, we are his witnesses,
who are his witnesses unto the people, verse 32. And we declare
unto you, The gospel that's what the word glad tidings means how
that the promise which was made unto The fathers god hath fulfilled
the same unto us their children in that he hath raised up jesus
again And once he finishes that statement He affirms that statement
by a biblical text As it is also written in the second psalm.
You are my son This day have I begotten thee So there are
three things I want to talk about tonight in relationship to the
way Paul is closing out his discourse. I mean, I'm going to be talking
to you about election briefly. Although most of you will get
a full development of election on Sunday, as we will have to
treat it in Romans nine, I'm going to be dealing with you
about what it means to be begotten. Although many of you will get
a fuller development of that on Wednesday, as we deal with
Psalm two, and then I'll be dealing with you tonight on what it means
to be the church. because this is where the whole
pivotal transition of the apostles ministry will now hinge historically. Paul learned by the time he wrote
the epistles that God had ordained him to preach the gospel to the
Gentiles. He had a measure of success with
his Jewish brethren, but not much. But when once he would
turn this corner, here after he preaches in Pisidia, and begins
to go down the pathway of proclaiming the gospel to the Gentiles, Paul
is going to be utterly amazed at the difference between the
reception he and his team get with the Gentiles versus what
they got with the Jews. And what that's gonna do for
Paul is cause him to fall deeply into reflection upon the Old
Testament prophecies and ask the question, how is it that
these Gentiles are so wide open to the gospel and my own Jewish
brethren are not? So the book of Acts then is kind
of like a working ground, an atmosphere where Paul is going
to be working out his theology. And his theology now comes into
full, pristine clarity and order in the epistles. In Romans 9,
Paul is clear on this thing. As we're going to see but he's
going to be working it out historically in his own sanctification In
his own experience as he goes from church to church to church
now from chapter 13 all the way to the end of the book He's going
to see this major divide And this major divide he's going
to understand as the will of god As the mystery that was hidden
in ages past though it was proclaimed by the prophets the Jewish people
would not understand and Paul himself is going to have to live
with as we learned in Romans chapter 9 a major burden and
That is his own people are under the curse While the Gentiles
of whom his own people thought were under the curse are under
the blessing So you and I are at that pivotal point here. And
in the last portion of Paul's discourse, what he's about to
do now is build his argument for King Jesus. He's about to
build his argument for King Jesus. He implied it in verse 23, when
he says, for unto us has God raised unto Israel a savior,
even Jesus. But all of the Jewish people
who had studied their Bibles knew To call Jesus savior is
to call him messiah and to call him messiah is to call him king
They understood that you cannot separate the kingship of christ
from his messiahship Or his role as savior as we do in this silly
evangelical generation today Where folks will say well, jesus
is my savior, but he's not my lord And what we would say to
you is then he's not your savior Because you cannot divide Jesus.
Salvation is the embracing of the totality of the person and
the work of Christ. You're not just accepting his
work of forgiveness of sins, you accept his person as Lord. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the what? Lord shall be saved. And that
term Kyrgios is tied to the Old Testament term Jehovah Yahweh.
Those two concepts are interchangeable both in the Hebrew and the Greek.
And that means Jesus is sovereign Lord over the lives of everyone
who puts their faith in him. So we got some work to do tonight.
And I wanna make sure that I can make some advancement. I'd love
to get to my 10th points. The Gentiles will receive it,
but there's a few things I want to mark as we develop Paul's
argument. what paul does now in this jewish
congregation that's mixed between jews and gentiles we learned
that back over when paul stood up in verse 16 and said uh with
his hand beckoning men of israel and ye that fear god give audience
so contextually we are in a synagogue with jews and gentiles i need
you to get that context because paul is going to be clear on
the major Consistency of antagonism that comes from the Jewish element
He's gonna be clear on that because he's already suffered from his
Jewish brethren, but he's in a synagogue now with Jews and
Gentiles So he's already acknowledged that in verse 16 you who fear
God now he says over in verse 32 now we declare unto you that
same group as The gospel that's what the word glad tidings means
how that the promise and the word promise is always An addendum
to the word gospel. They are almost synonyms Ewangelion
is the greek term for the gospel Ewangelion is the greek term
for the gospel and epangelion is the greek term for the promise
in other words the gospel contains the promise If you get your gospel
right, it will be filled with the promises of God. So the euangelion
contains the epangelion, which are the promises of God, which
when you follow the scriptures through, they talk about the
promises consistently. So I want to talk with you briefly
about this fundamental proposition that Paul is dealing with in
the text. He is saying that the promise, singular, although there
are promises in the plural, are fulfilled. The promise to our
fathers are fulfilled. This is a statement that they
make all the way through the book of Acts. It's announced
in the gospels. It's prophesied in the Old Testament,
but it's fulfilled in the book of Acts. Look with me in your
Bible in Acts chapter two, verse 18, how that the apostle Peter
basically uses this same discourse. Now, Paul is not even around
at this time, but here's what Peter says. Acts chapter 2 as
we work through these same this same message of the gospel that
he's preaching in Acts chapter 2 He says in verse 18 these words
When they when they were really concerned with what is this thing
called the pouring out of the Spirit? He said in verse 16,
but this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel shall come
to pass in the last day said God I will pour out my spirit
upon all flesh your sons and your daughters shall prophesy
and your young men shall see visions your old men shall dream
dreams and all my servants and all my handmaids I will pour
out in those days of my spirit and they shall prophesy Are these
not promises that come out of the Old Testament? He goes on
to develop why they are speaking in other languages to affirm
prophecies that were declared. Peter also preaches the gospel
to them. Look at verse 22. You men of
Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of
God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God
did by him in the midst of you, as you yourselves know. Him being
delivered by the determinate counsel and for knowledge of
God you have taken and by wicked hands you have crucified now
watch the next line whom God what? Raised up having loosened
the pains of death because it was not possible that he should
be holding by it now beloved what you find in apostolic preaching
is is a method of preaching that deals with the history, brings
it all the way to Jesus, and points to the death, burial,
and resurrection of Jesus in all their preaching. What you
see in the method of the preaching of the apostles is developing
the historicity of Israel. Tying it to the prophecy concerning
Jesus then actually Affirming the prophecy by the facts that
are occurred in the life of Christ and the Apostles where they heard
Christ They saw his miracles. They rejected him. They killed
him and God raised him from the dead This is the message they're
preaching all the way through the book of Acts Paul is doing
the same thing in Acts 13 that Peter is doing in Acts chapter
2 now watch what Peter says over in verse 36 and following here's
what he says we're going to get to verse 39 where the word promise
is going to come up again therefore let all the house of Israel know
assuredly that God have made this same Jesus whom you have
crucified what both Lord and Messiah see it Peter affirms
his Messiah ship and his rule as king He goes on to say, now
when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart and said
unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what
shall we do? Isn't this a great day? When
the heart of the unregenerate hearing the gospel is broken
and brought to a place of recognizing that they have not heard a message,
which is called an invitation, but a summons from God to believe
or perish. And then in humility cry out,
what shall we do? Ladies and gentlemen, you won't
hear this again anywhere in the book of Acts This is the one
and only time where this group of Jews will actually believe
the gospel Every other time it's preached. They will challenge
it It is for this reason that the way Paul closes out his sermon
is with a warning Not a celebration in Acts 13. He warns them do
not harden your hearts, but we'll see that when we get there Now
listen to what Peter says. Then Peter said unto them, repent
and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ
for the remission of sins. And you shall receive the gift
of the Holy Ghost. Verse 39, for the what? Promise is unto
you and to your children and to all that are far off, even
as many as the Lord our God shall what? We call this the gospel
call. You will not come until God calls
you. The promise comes through the
proclamation of the gospel and with many other words that he
exhorts So we see here that peter is using this concept of a promise
and it's also in acts chapter four Look at acts four with me
as we make our way back. I think it's also an act. Uh
Yeah, go to Acts 4. I won't look at that one. Acts
chapter 4, verse 24. Notice how Peter now develops
it again. And this is a crucial text here
because Peter now and the rest of them, Peter, James, and John
now are threatened by the rulers. In Acts chapter 4, we're going
to start at verse 23. And being let go, they went to
their own company and reported all that the chief priests and
the elders said unto them. And when they heard that, they
lifted up their voices to God with one accord and said, Lord,
you are God. Which are may heaven and earth
and the sea and all that is in them all that in them is stop
at verse 24 I need I knew I wanted to do this and I said as soon
as I had the time I will develop it I am frequently asked How
do you pray to God? Do you pray to God in Jesus name?
Is it okay to pray pray to the Holy Ghost? I don't think we
should pray to the Holy Ghost. I asked the question is the Holy
Ghost a person and Well, yeah, then if he's a person you can
pray to him. All right, is he God? Well, yes, then if he's
God you can pray to him. He's not an inanimate force Is
Jesus God Then you can pray to him as the Father God then you
can pray to him you can pray to any of them in any of their
names or You can just call them God See, God is not a little genie
in a bottle that if you get the code right, you get the blessings. That's point number one. Point
number two, God knows his name. Are you hearing me? And he also
knows that those who call upon him know his name. So he ain't
always saying, now say my name, say my name, say my name. We are so anthropomorphic down
here on this earth when it comes to God, are we not? I wonder
if God heard my prayers because I forgot to say in Jesus name.
I forgot to say in Jesus name. Jesus knows his name and he knows
whether or not from the core of your being you are praying
to the true and the living God. We worship him in spirit and
in truth. Are you guys hearing me? Watch
the text. I'm gonna prove this on my Monday show a couple weeks
from now And when they had heard that they lifted up their voice
to whom? With one accord and said Lord
Thou art what? Which had made heaven and earth
and the sea and all of them is see he didn't say Lord Jesus
God the Father God the Holy Ghost You can there's nothing wrong
with it. They simply acknowledge the lordship of God They knew
the persons Is that good? Verse 25, who by the mouth of
your servant David have said, why did the heathen rage and
the people imagine vain things? Mark this, their prayers are
biblical in nature. They are praying scripture. And
not only are they praying scripture, they are praying scripture in
context. Psalm 2 is where we are in our Wednesday study, because
Psalms 2 is central to this whole matter of the lordship of Jesus
Christ. It's also central to this matter of the hostility
of the human race against the Lordship of Jesus. And the apostles
here are affirming something that you cannot get through grammatical
or historical studies. And that's this, that Psalm 1
and Psalm 2 are directly the work of the Holy Ghost in the
mouth of David. Notice what it says, who by the
mouth of your servant David hath said, So how do I know how to
attribute Psalm 1, Psalm 2, and many other Psalms to David? Not
by the Old Testament, but by the new. And this is why you
can't just have the old, nor can you just have the new. You
got to have both of them if you want the truth. because the old
contains the new and the new affirms the old and they echo
each other and they affirm each other. And that's the only way
you can have truth to be established by being able to reference the
new in relationship to the old. So we know David wrote Psalm
1 and 2, didn't he? We know he wrote other Psalms,
but Psalms 1 and 2 does not have his name in the superscription.
But here, Peter, under inspiration of the Holy Ghost, is talking
to God about the one who actually spoke Psalm 1 and 2. Well, the
essence of our discourse tonight is around Abraham, David, and
Jesus. This is the essence of our discourse,
because we're dealing with a king. This monarch, this promise that
we're talking about being fulfilled is being fulfilled in King who?
Jesus. King Jesus is whose son? He's
David's son. Who else's son is he? He's Abraham's
son. That's Matthew's gospel. What
Matthew tells us in his gospel is Jesus is the son of David. So you and I are dealing with
the messianic fulfillment of the prophecy given to David that
out of the loins of David would one come who would sit on his
throne and rule the universe. This is the perspective of the
role of Christ as Messiah and as King. He is the son of David,
the son of Abraham. This is why Matthew's genealogy
goes from Abraham to David to Jesus. But I've been talking
to you guys about that for three weeks, so let me just repeat
these things. But it's important for you to
know that the center of the argument of the apostles they establish
the lordship of Christ is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy
around the role of David's son or seed who is Jesus and here
he says in verse 26 the kings of the earth stood up and the
rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against
his what right so do you see how the Apostles hold to what
we call a crystal centric hermeneutic that you cannot properly interpret
scripture without recognizing that Christ is the key to the
Bible. They are clearly alluding to
Jesus as being the one of whom the Psalms is saying the people
are rising up against the Father and against the Son. This is
Jesus. This is what we say to people
who really bring into question our doctrine and our teaching
about the sovereignty of God in Christ. What we say to them
is, if you have any doubt or any question or if you deny or
if you were abrogate the clear, crystal, biblical truth around
the centrality of Jesus Christ, you are in question of not having
the Spirit of God. Because the New Testament is
so absolutely full of the fact that Christ is the fulfillment
of scripture. And until you and I get this,
ladies and gentlemen, you and I will be on this sphere. I call
it a sphere. Look at this. It's like a ball.
The sphere. To be able to stay on this sphere
is to stay on the center of it. And where you get distracted
to one side or the other, you will inevitably slip off of this
sphere of biblical truth. That's the nature of debate and
the nature of argumentation. And that's the nature of people
who are not concerned with the truth of the gospel. If you shift
away from Jesus, which is the center of the spear, and start
getting caught up in other things, eventually you're gonna slide
off. Christ is the center of the spear. Are you guys hearing
what I'm saying? And you'll see people start with Jesus and end
with some stupid stuff. If you're gonna stay on that
ball and make your way to glory, you're gonna have to keep Jesus
at the center of your interpretation. Your hermeneutical plumb line
must be Jesus Christ. And when things depart from Christ,
you and I know that we are in trouble. So the apostles are
preaching Jesus and Peter is affirming that. And here again,
he is using Psalm two, which is the same thing that the apostle
Paul is going to be using as well. And now go back with me
to verse chapter 13. Let's work through a couple of
concepts now. This is really interesting. He
says, God had, verse 33, he says, God has fulfilled the same unto
their children in that he had raised up Jesus again. He had
raised up Jesus again. So the topic now is the resurrection
of Christ. And that's the true, the resurrection
of Christ is the topic because of the implications that fall
out to the resurrection. The resurrection is what they've
been going around talking about. God raised Jesus from the dead.
God raised him from the dead. And they're speaking almost purely
historically. Meaning they're speaking from
their own experience of knowing Christ personally, watching him
die personally, and watching God raise him from the dead personally. In this aspect of our consideration,
what we are taking into thought is this. that the first century
church, that nucleus of believers in Acts 1 through 28, were eyewitnesses
of his actual resurrection. That they were not merely proclaiming
out of a heart of conviction theological truths that they
have contemplated and coagulated and affirmed within themselves.
They're simply repeating a historical fact that they know to be true.
They're simply saying we saw Jesus when he was alive We saw
him when he died and we saw him when he was raised again from
the dead and because God raised him from the dead We know that
everything that the Bible said in the Old Testament about him
is true What I'm setting forth before you is this it's important
that you and I understand the unique privilege of the first
century churches Privilege and a position to have seen Christ
rise from the dead Because even today, for many Christians, the
historical resurrection of Jesus Christ plays little role in their
understanding of their salvation. And what that means is to the
degree that you and I are not real clear on the importance
that Christ came, that Christ died, that Christ rose again,
you can give up the gospel. to the degree that you and I
are not clear on the centrality of that which constitutes our
hope for eternal life, you can give up the gospel and therefore
be part of churches that don't even believe in the resurrection,
don't believe in the incarnation, don't believe in the atoning
work of Jesus Christ. He was a good fella, but really
what we want are the blessings from God. Are you guys hearing?
Now at that point, we have gotten off the center. The sphere has
now tilted us to one side, right? Materialism, narcissism, selfishness. I just want the blessings. Well,
I am here to affirm that you cannot have the blessings unless
you have the blesser. And you cannot have the blesser
unless you hear the blessed message of the gospel and believe that
blessed message of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Am I making some sense? And it's not a take it or leave
it message. This is the message that you stake your eternal soul
upon. Either Christ came and Christ
died and Christ rose again. If he didn't, you and I are in
eternal peril. If he did, then all of the promises
of God are yes and amen through him. The thing that you and I
want to be able to get a hold of is the facts and make sure
that they shape our conviction and our sense of truth so that
we are hanging on the truth of who Jesus is and what Jesus did
for our soul, rather than hanging on the promises that come out
existentially from that, whether we believe it or not. There's
a lot of people can walk with that, what we call cognitive
dissonance. I don't necessarily believe Jesus
did all that, but I believe God still blesses. God doesn't bless.
What Christ has a rose and risen again from the dead because God's
not gonna bless through lies You're gonna see that too as
we get to the closing portion of his message But here's what
I want to call your attention to a fascinating point here in
verse 33 when he says God has fulfilled the same unto us their
children in that he hath raised Jesus again as it is written
also in the second Psalm that Thou art my son this day have
I begotten you this is Psalm 2 verse 7 what I want to call
your attention to is a an inclination and guidance that Paul and Peter
and the New Testament writers are bound to repeat over and
over again essential to glorifying Christ as Savior and this is
this concept of being begotten and You'll notice that he's saying
in verse 33 that God has affirmed the resurrection of Christ by
having begotten him from the dead according to Psalms 2. This is an interesting concept.
Notice how Paul does this. He says, God has fulfilled the
same unto us, their children, in that he raised up Jesus again,
as it is written, also as it is also written in the second
Psalm, you are my son, this day have I begotten thee. And I go,
okay, now Paul, what's your logic? What's your approach? What are
you doing? How are you developing your argument
of the facts of Christ's resurrection and of the facts of Christ's
messiahship and of the fact of him being the son by quoting
Psalm 2 verse 7. What's your argument here? And
I want to work through that with you because Psalm 2 verse 7 certainly
speaks to the language that you are my son, this day have I begotten
you. And the previous verse, verse
six, says that God has set him on his holy hill of Zion. In
fact, it's verse five. Go with me in your Bibles to
Psalm chapter two. I want you to see this briefly.
Then I'm gonna call your attention to how the New Testament uses
the Psalms repeatedly to affirm the whole scope of Christ's coming,
of Christ's suffering, of Christ's death, of Christ's resurrection,
Christ ascension and rule Psalm 2 is going to be used to teach
us of the first coming of Christ his death his resurrection his
ascension and his rule this is remarkable because what the text
tells us in Psalms 2 verse 5 I'm gonna start at verse 5 I'll get
there with you here in a second here it is Psalm 2 verse 6 Starting
at verse 6 and we'll go through verse 7. Yet have I set my king
upon my holy hill of Zion. If you don't know it, the voice
here speaking is the father. The king of whom the father now
is appointing, that's what the word set means, is his son Jesus. Yet have I set my king upon my
holy hill of Zion. Zion is a term that describes
the whole kingdom of God. God says, I have set my king
upon my holy hill of Zion. Now watch this, verse seven,
I will declare the decree. For those of you who don't show
up on Wednesday, I'll give you a little insight what we already
learned. Verse seven, the voice changes. The person speaking
in verse seven is not the father, it's the son. And here's what
the son says, I will declare the decree. And what this is
gonna teach you and me is that the king is also a preacher. That the king that God sets on
his holy hill of Zion is a preacher. And that he has the privilege
of announcing to the whole kingdom his authority, his dominion,
his rule, which was given to him before the world began. That
the king that sits on the throne is also a heralder of the good
news. Now think about that for a moment
by implication before we get to the issue of the resurrection.
If you are subjects to a kingdom, and we are, we are either subjects
to the kingdom of God or we are subjects to the kingdom of darkness,
right? And if you are subjects to the
kingdom of God, it's all right for the king to have other subordinate
subjects tell you what the king says. That's all right, because
if they get it wrong, they gotta pay. But how blessed is the kingdom
to have the king speaking for himself? How blessed is the kingdom
of God where everybody in the kingdom gets to listen to the
king personally? And when you get to listen to
the King personally, you get it straight from the horse's
mouth. You don't ever have to worry about error or mistakes
or deletions or distortions. The King is telling every one
of his subjects himself what God has done for him. This is
beautiful. Now notice what it says. I will
declare the decree. The Lord, that is Jehovah the
Father, has said unto me, Now the son is speaking to us about
the conversation that he is having with his father. Watch this. You are my son. Do you see it? You are my son. This becomes the big Magna Carta
of the whole of God's contention with the human race. This becomes
God's placard What we would call controversy would fall in humanity
this what God is saying to the whole human race is this is my
son Okay, I want you to get that because this is the battle that's
going on in our culture and in our world since the fall of Adam
up to this present hour Humanity has been grasping for the rule
of God itself since the fall of man to this very moment of
All the nations are grasping for the throne of sovereignty
over all other peoples. When God has plainly said, I
have a king, he's on my throne and his name is Jesus and he's
my son. Now watch this ladies and gentlemen.
This is the whole battle between God and man all over planet earth. and more particularly here in
the West, right now in America, with our government legislating
rules and laws opposing the true claims of Christ. If our government
really believed that Jesus was King, our government would bow
to the Word of God, wouldn't it? Wouldn't it bow to the Word
of God? but because it does not believe
that Jesus is king, our government is set over in verse 1 of Psalm
2, just as it was the case for the first century church, so
it's happening with us today. Why doth the heathen rage? And the people imagine vain things.
The kings of the earth are setting themselves up. They gather together
against the Lord and against his anointed. This is the context
of the world you and I live in right now. And it's all because
God has plainly elected, chosen, foreordained, appointed one man
to rule over the universe. You know who that is? His son.
His son. So Psalms 2 verse 7 lays out
the gauntlet, the placard of God. God says, no, I'm not taking
any other applications for the throne. The throne is already
filled. And by the way, you better bow,
otherwise there are consequences. Are you guys following that?
This is very important because I'm laying a foundation as to
how we deal with this very unique term now, this day have I begotten
thee. You see that phrase begotten?
That term begotten must be understood more than in the mere genealogical
or genetic or physiological sense of being born. It is true that
begotten means born, but it has to mean more than that. And here's
what I want you to comprehend. When God uses the term begotten,
he uses it in several ways. One, he does use it in the sense
of sonship with regards to Christ's ontology or Christ's nature as
God. That is a mystery of which I
don't want to unpack tonight. How that the father God could
have a son who is also God in the sense of ontological filial-ness. That is that the son would be
God just like the father in a relational sense. Ontologically Christ bears
the same attributes and the same nature as his father. They are
distinct persons They are not one person. They are two persons
bearing the same nature. Are you guys hearing me? like
father like what so that the DNA of the father is in the son
and he bears equality of nature and That means that Jesus is
Theos, just like the Father is Theos. Or Elohim. Or Eloi. Or El. He is God, just like the Father
is God. Only in relationship to the Father,
He's the Father's Son. Which means by deduction or inference,
He is never to be viewed as the Father. And the Father is never
to be viewed as the Son. Jesus himself forbids us to deny
the order of the Father and the Son, attributing to the Son being
the Father and the Father being the Son. The only thing that
you and I can do with regards to the ontology of the Father
and the Son is to know that the only way you can know the Father
is through the Son. Christ bids you to understand
who the Father is through the Son. He bids you to come to the
Father through the Son. He bids you to love the Father
through the Son. He bids you to serve the Father
through the Son. He bids you to embrace all of
the blessings that come from the Father through the Son. Are
you guys hearing what I'm saying? But he never bids you to call
him the Father or the final grounds of blessing. So when he says
in John 14 6, I am the way I am the truth and I am the life no
one comes unto the father But by me he is saying ground zero
is the father the way to him as the son Did you guys get that so that
all children of God that are properly taught come to the father
through the son and And we acknowledge him as our heavenly father. Are y'all hearing me? This does
not diminish at all the qualitative nature of Christ with his father.
It simply subordinates him in a proper structure of priority,
father and son, as everything that's made does. You would never
say that the son was before the father. That would be oxymoronic. That would be crazy. It would
be physically impossible. It would be absurd. It would
be ridiculous. It would be illogical and irrational.
Am I making some sense? And yet when you talk about the
Father and the Son in terms of their deity, you are really not
talking about any kind of time priority. For you cannot possibly
conceive of the Son not existing, while as yet the Father exists. Can I touch on that for a second
just to help you? For when you conceive in your mind that Jesus
did not have an existence, you also at that very moment, at
that very picosecond, deny God's fatherhood. For you cannot be
a father without a son. Did that come home? For these
silly people that want to say that the son had a time when
he did not exist. Well, if that's true, then the
father had a time where he didn't exist. But if God the father
has always got the father, then God the son has always got the
son. Hallelujah. Did that come home? But that
don't make no sense to me, pastor. That's your problem, not mine. It makes all of the analogous
logic that the Bible intends for it to do. We call this the
analogy of truth. The analogy of truth is that
very much of what's going on in your world, God has determined,
God has, as it were, appointed, God has structured in order for
us to see into the nature of the Trinitarian persons. Only
in part. Am I making some sense? Son never
comes before the father and so that priority is there and so
Jesus can easily say my father is greater than I He's not talking
about his nature. He's talking about his role and
When sons are obedient, they can always give glory to their
daddy Hallelujah, did you get that? Did you get that when sons
are obedient? They can always give glory to
the daddy now watch it. And when daddy's act like daddy's
I Sons are going to be willing to be obedient and give glory
to their father. So our God really constructed
this whole relational dynamic from which we are to draw from
him how we are to live, love, and serve one another. Am I making
some sense? When Psalm 2 speaks about this day have I begotten
thee, he's not speaking purely in the ontological sense. He's
speaking in the messianic and what we call the kingship sense. Messianic. What we are talking
about is him being begotten to his office as king That God views the coronation
of Christ into his kingship as a kind of birth not a birth of
being but a birth of office a birth of of station, a birth of rule,
a birth of position. Am I making some sense? And this
was a big deal for Israel. Every time the king had a son
who took his place, it was a kind of birth. And this is how God
the Father works it in the Old Testament. I want you to see
this. See, I'll have to take a little time with this just
so that I can bring this home. If you go to 2 Samuel chapter
7, watch how 2 Samuel 7 puts it We were here before but I
need us to go back here again When we talk about this day,
have I begotten thee? It does mean that indeed jesus is the
only begotten of the father full of grace and truth. John one,
right? It does mean that jesus is the monogamous the unique
one of god bearing the same nature of god called the son of god
from the father of god by which all things are made. That's true,
too But when this terminology this day have I begotten this
is used is speaking to the coronation and establishment Of the king
in second samuel chapter 7 where david wanted to build god a house
God told him You can't build a house big enough for me Then
he said but i'ma build one for you And you can get the Wednesday
studies and be blessed by it. I'm at verse 12. Here's what
God says to David. Now when your days be fulfilled
and you shall sleep with your fathers, isn't that the way the
apostles are talking about David? And when your days are fulfilled
and you sleep with your fathers, I will set up your what after
you? Love it. Who is he talking about?
Is he talking about Solomon? Who's he talking about? You better
know it. If you and I are biblical Christians,
The prophecy has to be about jesus Though historically it
will be fulfilled through the many seeds of david the kings
of judah, right? Watch how this goes I will set
up your seed after thee which will proceed out of your bowels
And I will establish his kingdom He shall build a house for my
name. Do you see it? And I will establish the throne
of his kingdom for a little while Is that what it says? So now
if it's true that it's forever, it cannot apply to Solomon. It
cannot apply to Jeroboam, or Rehoboam, or Asa, or Joash, or
Josiah, because all of them had limited kingdom periods. This
must be Messianic pointing to the Lord Jesus whose kingdom
is forever. Are you guys following the logic?
Now follow the prophecy as it unpacks. Will be his what? See it now. Why is he talking
about fatherhood in the midst of coordinating the King? because
what he's establishing is the Messianic kingship of Jesus as
being begotten at the time that God places him as King Do you
see that? there then we have also the confluence
of the true King of God with his son Jesus Christ and Bearing
that office as his son That is the son of god only the son of
god could occupy the throne of god as god's king No other person
could really truly occupy god's throne as king but his son since
his son is eternal in nature as he is So I've been teaching
you guys the three covenant models told you you guys you guys you
guys are you guys are in good shape at grace if you're paying
attention I've been teaching you guys the three covenant models
the way you're going to understand scripture and our world The first
covenant model is the model of what father and son That's exactly
right. And that model runs all the way
through the bible No matter how our culture wants to destroy
the patriarchal model, God's people acknowledge God the Father
as preeminent above all. Isn't that right? And God the
Son, the means by which you and I have been adopted in the beloved
and take our place with Jesus Christ at the right hand of God,
thus we possess what Christ possesses because we are one with Christ
before God our Father. We would never want to abandon
a patriarchal model of the gospel, would we? No, because God modeled
everything that's going to be blessed that way So mark this
now if you are a son You are also a king, but we didn't already
learn that haven't we learned that we are a kingdom of priests
before God You're gonna see that this word ties into the role
of Christ as high priest as well his begottenness He says I will
be his father. He shall be my what? I And if
he committed iniquity, I will chase him with the rod of men
and with the stripes of the children of men. Do you see the allusion
to the cross there? Is that Isaiah 53? Do you see
it? By his stripes we're healed.
The chastisement of his peace was upon him. He was a man that
was smitten, stricken and afflicted of God. God laid upon him the
iniquity of us all. That the reason why we can acknowledge
Christ bearing the stripes of our iniquity is because God took
our iniquities and poured them upon Christ and it's as it were
Christ bore our sins. Do you see the prophecy? My,
this is not just about Solomon messing up with 700 wives and
300 concubines. Or even David messing up. And
many of the Judah Kings did mess up. But this is pointing to the
provisio. We call it a provisio in the
covenant. A provisio. A provisio in the
covenant. where God who is holy must punish
sin. But he would punish it in such
a way that all of his sons and daughters would be able to escape
damnation because the son in whom they are would be the one
bearing the sin and they would be suffering in Christ as he
suffers for them like the ark of Noah in the days when the
flood overwhelmed the ark. but the eight souls that were
in it were unharmed. So when we are in Christ, as
we have been before the foundation of the world, God has secured
our eternal destiny because we are in Christ and our sin is
punished in Christ as if it were us because we are one in Christ. Are you guys hearing me? This
is very important for you to understand never view yourself
outside of Christ the moment you do you have no covering The
moment you do you have no covering and this is the what we call
prima facie text by which God builds his whole promise of kingship
through the line of Judah Not through the other children of
Israel. I told you this before Saul was not God's King David
was God's King And Judah would be the tribe out of whom the
lion of the tribe of Judah would come, even Jesus. So when God
says, I have found one whose heart is after mine, he will
be the man that will project my son into the world. And this
is what you and I are reading in the book of Acts around the
argument of the apostles concerning the sonship of Jesus being the
son of David and now the king of God over the universe of the
world. So the first truth that I want you to grasp is not so
much that being begotten of God has to do with Christ's ontological
sonship. That is true. But being begotten
of God has to do with his messianic office as king. Do you guys see
that because God's gonna have a king ruling his universe and
that king is the God man Jesus Christ And so the next thing
I want you to see with regards to this if you will turn with
me in your Bible to Psalm 89 I want you to see another Messianic
prophecy around this truth. This time is going to be within
the within the personhood of David and The same promise is
going to be made to david, but you and I are going to see That
it could not possibly be fulfilled in david. It must be fulfilled
in jesus Who is david's son? Now what I am doing as I am showing
you these passages Is teaching you all a critical? method of
biblical interpretation By which if you don't understand you can
never see the gospel in the scriptures Some of you never saw that gospel
truth in 2nd Samuel chapter 7. Raise your hand, tell the truth.
Just be honest about it. Now watch this. And it's only
because our pastors have not taught a Christocentric hermeneutic. And as such, you get caught up
in merely the historicity of the text and miss the fulfillment
of the text. And therefore, you lose any benefit
of the explicit teachings of the rules of biblical interpretation. How many of you guys remember
last week I gave you five verses that we use as anchoring passages
for interpreting the scripture? How many of you guys remember
that? Raise your hand, let me see it. Okay, only a few of you. All right, so the
first one is Psalm 40 verse 7. The second one is John chapter
5, 39. The third one is 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 10. The fourth
one is Revelation chapter 19, 10. And then we can use a whole
bunch more. Okay, we can use a whole bunch
more to underscore this. These are critical passages Psalm
40 verse 7 You got to write this down Psalm 40 verse 7 John chapter
5 39 I'm using 1st Peter chapter 1 verse 10 and then Revelation
19 10, but then we can go back to 1st Corinthians chapter 2
verse 2 Alright 1st Corinthians 2 verse 2. This is the ethic
that Paul uses. It's an ethic verse and I am determined to
know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and I'm crucified.
If a man or woman or people are not sharing the gospel of the
person and work of Christ, they're not Christian. And the rule of
biblical interpretation is to see Jesus in the scriptures.
So the first verse that I use is Psalm 40 verse 7, of which
Jesus battled with the very people that he came to around how to
interpret the scriptures. Psalm 40 verse 7. Lo, I come
in the volume of the book. It's talking about me. Isn't
that what Jesus is saying? And the Jews is all over the
map thinking it's talking about them. Right? And they want to kill him because
he is claiming to be the prophecy of Scripture. Now the last verse
makes it two bookends, Revelation chapter 19, 10. Pull up Revelation
19, 10. I want you guys to see this. These are two bookends,
Psalm 40, Revelation 19, 10. And there are many other verses
I could pile on as examples of the necessity of a crystal centric
hermeneutic, but I'm only giving you five as a basic sort of a
plum line for you to remember that when you are studying the
word of God, while you are looking at the literal historical grammatical
text, Somehow it better preach and teach you something of the
person and work of Jesus or you have not come to the truth of
that text So revelation chapter 1910, is it up on the board?
Listen to what? John was told once again by the
angel as John fell to what we call preacher worship or angel
worship Which in our sort of dimension is fear of existence
is preacher worship. What do I mean by that? Everyone
fundamentally holds to the fact that the preacher is the angel
of the house. I am the primary teaching preacher
in this house. And as such, I am a messenger. But I am by no means Celestial. I just want you to know that
right now. I'm just as terrestrial as you are. Okay. Okay. And my wife will approve that
if she needs to. And while you respect the messenger,
you never worship them like folks are doing in the church today.
And John failed to it twice because he failed to understand that
you don't worship the method or the instrument you worship
the source. You don't kiss the water holes
just because water comes out of the water holes. You kiss
the water because God gave us the water. Do you understand
that? And so when you go to worship in the preacher, you have now
abused your privilege to glorify God by worshiping the preacher,
which is what a lot of people do. Are you hearing me? You honor
the preacher. You worship God. I thank God
for you, man. I thank God for you, but I see
God. That's what you're supposed to
do. And when the preacher seeks to steal God's glory, now he
is no longer an angel. He's a devil. You got that? He's a devil now because the
whole objective of the devil is to steal God's glory. but if john will make this mistake
and he does it twice revelation 19 and in revelation chapter
22 danger has to tell him christ boy you better get up i'm a servant
just like you god can send both of us to hell ain't that good
And I fell at his feet to worship him, and he said unto me, see
thou do it not. I am thy fellow servant and of
thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus. I have the testimony
of Jesus, the testimony of Jesus. He says what? Worship who? Worship
God. For the testimony of Jesus is
what? So you need to mark that last
clause. How do I know that the spirit of prophecy is operating
in a ministry? Because they are preaching Christ.
Do you see it? The testimony of Jesus as the
fundamental message that is proceeding from the teaching of that church
will affirm the presence of the Spirit of God. Because the role
of the Spirit of God is to take the things of Christ and show
them to you. The role of the Spirit of God
is to not to get you on mystical goose pimple experiences or take
you down some esoteric path of blind emotionalism or some kind
of mystical experiences of demonism or darkness. Don't ever let anyone
take you down those dark paths of superstition, paganism, mysticism,
of which Paul said in the book of Colosses, when they do that,
they are vainly pumped up by their fleshly mind and they are
not upholding the head from which the whole body is blessed. When
you stop preaching Christ, you cut off the circulation to the
whole body. And now all you have is a carcass
that's about to fall over dead because some other spirit has
gotten a hold of it. What I'm doing now should be
done at least once a year in every pulpit. This is how you
recalibrate the house. This is how you recalibrate the
brakes and align the wheels so that the car doesn't just start
drifting. The car will drift if you don't get people back
on point that this thing is about Jesus Christ and him crucified.
That's right. That's exactly right. And this
is the reason why so many Christians are arguing and debating about
this, that, and the other because they don't see Christ as the
central figure. And I've said it before. We cannot
have unity in the church where Christ has been minimized, where
Christ is exalted and magnified and lifted up and made the center
of everything. You'll find a people who are
happy in the Lord walking together because it's all about Jesus
and not about them. Whenever Christ is minimized, then everything
else is maximized. You guys are hearing what I'm
saying, right? All right, so let's go on. This is the text
I just shared with you. Go back with me to Acts. I wanna
develop this before we go into a Q&A. I'll just develop these
for us tonight. So when we talk about the begottenness,
the way that the book of Acts develops it is an amazing way
because it's talked about in the book of Acts in Acts chapter
four as well, addressing the incarnation. Watch what it says
back in Acts chapter four, I'm sorry. I brought you to Psalm
89 and you need to see this. So going back to Psalm 89, this
is a Psalm where God is speaking clearly to David, but it's not
about David. Here's what he says over in verse
18. For the Lord is our defense and the Holy One of Israel is
our what? That's great. There's an association between
Jehovah, who is called the Holy One of Israel, and he's also
called our what? That makes Jesus what? God. Very clear. Then thou spakest
in vision to thy holy one and said, I have laid help upon one
that is mighty. I have exalted one chosen out
of the people. I have found David my what? Mark
the word servant and mark how he uses the word David with my
holy oil Have I anointed him with whom my hand shall be established?
My arm also shall be strengthened in him that is his will God's
will is Represented by his hand and by his arm to whom hath the
arm of the Lord been revealed. Isaiah 53 So an arm and a hand
represents the will of God the will of God and the will of God
could never be fulfilled But through one person and that's
Jesus He came to do the will of his father Look at it now
the enemy shall not exact upon him nor the son of wickedness
afflict him And I will beat down his foes before his face and
plague them that hate him But my faithfulness and my mercy
shall be with him And in my name shall his horn be exalted. That's
his strength his role as king I will set his hand also in the
sea and his right hand in the rivers He shall cry unto me What
shall he cry? You are my father, my God. Do you see that? You are my Abba,
my Elohim, and the rock of my salvation. Is that the way Jesus
talked about his father? Eloi, Eloi, sabbathach, sabbathachthani,
sabbathachthani. Trying to get the last part of
that Arabic phrase. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why is he crying out like that? Because for him, his God, who
was also his father, was his rock. And it's salvation. He
is teaching you and me what it means to be a son. And that's
to depend fully upon the father, isn't it? And watch how he goes
on. He says in verse 27, here's the
key. And I also will make him, contextually,
who is he talking about here? Who is the pronoun him? David,
right? I also will make him my firstborn
higher than the kings of the earth. Now we just said, that
the text speaks to the person David, right? Did you guys hear
me? Now, I know you didn't want to roll with me, but you have
to. Because we have to actually stay consistent hermeneutically
with the context. In verse 20, he says, I have
found David my servant. That's context. Are you with
me? So I'm not going to violate what we call a five-fold hermeneutic
of Scripture. Literal, historical, grammatical,
theological, redemptive. David is whom God is talking
about, right? But the word David in the Hebrew
means what? Beloved. And God's beloved is his son.
So this David that God is talking about is Jesus. Did you get that? The David here
is Jesus. This is the nature of scripture.
I'll show you this in Ezekiel 34 in a moment. I know contextually
it seemed like we were locking in on David. But that's only
because David is the progenitor of the seed of whom God says
will sit on his throne forever as we saw in 2 Samuel chapter
7, right? And God is calling Jesus David. Why is he calling
him David? Because the name David means
beloved. This is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased. So David serves, as we're going
to see, as a great type of Jesus. So we're going to end Romans
chapter 9 in about 3 weeks and I'm going to take a break for
about 2 months and go through the life of David. I'm going
to do what we call a bio of David. And the purpose I'm going to
do a bio of David is to show us the grand typology of David
as a representation of Jesus from his call to his death. And you're going to see all through
his call what it means for Christ to have come of the seed of David. and the different things we'll
learn there. But I'll show you in a moment why I make the tie
directly to Jesus here. But for the most part, the proposition
in verse 27 cannot be fulfilled by David, it can only be fulfilled
by Jesus. Is that true? He also will I make my what?
Firstborn. Is Jesus God's firstborn? Higher
than the kings of the earth. So here's what the Spirit of
God does according to Revelation 19.10. The testimony of Jesus,
the testimony of Jesus, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
The spirit of God will take the historical context and weave
it perfectly into God's redemptive purposes in Christ and won't
let you know. You just have to know the rules.
Because right there in the context, we have a prophecy concerning
the preeminence of Christ as God's king over every other king
in the world. Is he king of kings and Lord
of lords? Higher than the kings of the earth. This is why Paul
wrote in the book of Colossians, God has given him preeminence
over everything. Preeminence. He's called the
firstborn of many brethren. He's called the firstborn because
he has preeminence. The term firstborn also does
not have a direct connection to the genetic element or the
ontological element. It simply means to be first in
position because that same terminology is used of David who was the
seventh in his family. Rather the eighth David wasn't
even the firstborn It's the same terminology that's used fundamentally
concerning Isaac who was the secondborn And yet God called
him When he spoke to Abraham in Genesis 22 take Isaac thine
only son Isaac and offer him up What do you mean only son?
He had a son named Ishmael? Well as we're gonna see on Sunday
God did not acknowledge Ishmael Just like God did not acknowledge
Saul He only acknowledged David. He only acknowledged Isaac. He
did not acknowledge Esau. He acknowledged Jacob. He did
not acknowledge Cain. He acknowledged Abel. Are you
hearing me? Why? Because God is a God of
election. The doctrine of election is emerging
here very clearly. Like if you're saved, God chose
you. You didn't choose God. Are you hearing me? Out of the
billions of people on planet earth, God chose you. Just like
he chose david just like he chose, uh abel just like he chose jacob. God chose you Do you know the
bible calls us firstborn? Does the bible call us firstborn?
You better read your bible the firstborn assembly of god in
hebrews chapter 12 Yeah, we're the first one it's good, isn't
it? Well, and i've told you this is an axiomatic principle. You
got to get it everything that jesus is we are in him Is jesus
firstborn? So are we. Is he a son? So are
we. Is he a king? So are we. Is he
a priest? So are we. Is he a prophet? Is
he a lamb? So we are lambs. Is he a servant?
So are we servants too. Everything that Jesus are, we
are in him, was, we are in him. This is the beauty of the gospel.
And this is the security of the saints. This is the dignity of
every believer. This is why I say, If you waste
your time not learning about Jesus, you are not learning about
yourself. Because to the degree that you
learn about Christ, you learn about yourself. Is Christ seated
in heavenly places? So am I. Is Christ more than
a conqueror? So am I. Did Christ die? So did I. Did he rise again?
So have I. Is Christ reigning? So do I. I'm a partaker of the divine
nature. And as such, I possess all of
the rights and inheritance that Jesus did. I know that's crazy,
but that's the nature of the gospel. The gospel is crazy.
Are you hearing me? All right, so the second thing
is the messianic office as king. The third thing that I want you
to see now is in fact the begottenness of Christ from the resurrection
of the dead. Go with me in your Bible to Acts chapter 424. We
got about 10 more minutes. I wanna see if I can make this
good just on this subject. Acts chapter 427, the apostle
Peter alludes to it as we saw before. And I wanna just touch
on that and then go back to our context and show you three other
passages. Underscore a marvelous truth around the begottenness
the begottenness of Christ and Us in him and I'm chapter 4 where
Peter is praying because they've been threatened by the rulers
We see over in verse 26 already alluded to this that we've affirmed
that Psalm 2 is written by David We've affirmed that the kings
of the earth stood and the rulers were gathered together. That's
verse 26 They were gathered together against the Lord and against
his what? Oh His Christ, that's verse 26 of Acts 4, which means
Psalms 2 is about Jesus. And then here's what Peter says,
for of a truth against your holy child, Jesus, whom you have anointed,
both Herod, Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of
Israel were what? Which means Psalm 2, verse 1 and 2, includes
rebel Israel as part of the heathen Gentiles. in opposition to God
and in opposition to Christ. And it's being fulfilled right
here in Acts chapter four. The Holy Ghost is moving Peter
to interpret Acts two. Are you guys hearing me? To demonstrate
that the hostility of the apostate church against Jesus is what's
in view here. He came unto his own and his
own received him not. He was in the world and the world
was made by him and the world knew him not. And Jesus plainly
said, I've told you the truth and you want to kill me. And
ladies and gentlemen, the book of Psalms is filled with this
language. This is why God gave him the
provisional of the covenant. And when his enemies seek to
exact something from him, I will protect him. I don't want you
talking about David. I don't want you talking about
Solomon or all the Judah Kings talking about Jesus because the
world hates the fact that Christ is God's sole singular monarch. over the universe. Everyone has
to bow the knee to King Jesus one day. Is that true? And the
saints were persecuted in the first century because Caesar
hated that concept. Remember who wanted to be worshipped?
Caesar. And if you didn't bow to Caesar,
didn't call Caesar curious, you die. And so this is where the,
um, The apostle peter is now alluding to acts 2 and then we
go over to acts 13 I want you to see where we are in verse
33 and note that what paul does is attribute he attributes he
attributes the sonship of christ and his rule on his father's
throne to his resurrection Verse 33 of Acts 13, God hath fulfilled
the same unto us their children in that he raised Jesus again,
in that he raised Jesus again, as it is also written in the
second Psalm, thou art my son, this day have I what? And remember
what I asked, how do we make the connection between Psalm
two and seven and the resurrection of Christ? How do we make the
connection? This way, the resurrection of
Jesus Christ is the proof that he was the Messiah. The resurrection
of Jesus Christ is the proof that he was the son of God. Watch
this now. Christ came, told everybody he was the son of God. How many
times did the Jews want to kill him for making himself equal
to God? Calling God his what? Father? There by implication
being the Messiah to whom they must come for which Jesus says
in John chapter 8 if you don't believe on me You're gonna die
in your sin. They understood clearly that he was making himself
out to be Messiah. Guess what? They killed him in
order to prove him wrong And what did God do raised him from
the dead and by raising him from the dead? What did he do? He
proved that Jesus was right and What Paul is saying is the resurrection
of which they have been preaching since Acts chapter 2. All the
apostles is an affirmation that Jesus was God's only begotten
son whom God has raised from the dead to prove in fact that
he was the son that he told David would come into the world and
take his throne. Are you guys hearing me? Now, It's important
to affirm this first and foremost by romans chapter 1 verse 4 and
5 go in your bibles to roman 1 4 and 5 In fact, there's romans
1 verse, uh 3 and 4, but i'm going to start at verse 1 go
through 3 and 4 Then i'm going to share with you two more verses
because I want you to see the beauty of What it means for christ
to be The one whom the father has begotten to the throne of
david promised in eternity, anticipated
in time by his incarnation, attested to by his death and resurrection,
and impacting the whole of the world by his ascension and reign
right now. I'm gonna show you these three
other passages after this and wrap up this point. And I'll
open the floor for a few questions of any kind if you have them
before we close tonight. Listen to what Romans chapter
1 verses 3 and 4 say. Now I'm going to open in verse
1. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called an apostle, separated
unto the gospel which he had promised aforetime by his prophets
in the holy scriptures. That is even the... Here Paul
is stating that the call to preach the gospel was something that
was prophesied in the Old Testament. Then he says in verse 3, here's
the message. Here's what they preach. Are you ready concerning
his son Jesus? Christ our Lord watches which
was made of the seed of what do you see how apostolic doctrine?
Presses home this Davidic kingdom and it presses it home in the
present tense not the future tense Christ is David's son now
Christ is God's king now, on God's throne now, ruling over
the nations now. Watch this. Concerning the seed
of David, according to the what? Now was Jesus born of the tribe
of Judah? Was David born of the tribe of
Judah? Did Jesus come directly through David's line? That's
Matthew's gospel and Luke's gospel clearly alludes to Judah. It's
amazing as we are going through our women's theology class, one
of the things I taught our women is that the Bible is for us the
full panorama. It starts in Genesis, ends in
Revelation, right? Genesis is the word seed. And
the book of Revelation, the Apocalypse is the full manifestation of
the seed. So the seed is in Genesis and throughout the history of
scripture, we have that seed going into the ground, dying,
bringing forth fruit and coming into full manifestation in the
glorious resurrection and exaltation of Jesus Christ in the book of
Revelation. So Revelation gives us the full orb glory of Christ
and the book of Genesis gives us the what? Seed. Is that true? And that seed unfolds from book,
to book, to book, to book, to book. Lo, I come in the volume
of the book it's written of me. From Genesis, to Exodus, to Numbers,
to Leviticus, to Deuteronomy, to Joshua, to Judges, all the
way through. All of the offices of the Old Testament point to
Christ. All of the history points to the coming of Christ, the
suffering of Christ, the resurrection of Christ. That's 1 Peter 1.10.
Are you guys hearing me? And so we see a growing revelation
from Genesis all the way to the full blossom of the revelation
of his glory in the book of Revelation. Y'all got that right? So this
book is a seamless story about the glory of God in Christ. And
here's what Paul is saying. He is of the seed of David according
to the flesh and the work was made what? And dwelt among us. And he is declared to be the
son of god with power Watch this now according to the spirit of
holiness or rather the holy spirit by the resurrection from the
dead You may not have gotten it But
I'll help you get it now When god raised him from the dead
The holy ghost says now the only reason he's risen from the dead
is because he's the son of god Just like he said he was And
this is where Peter eloquently argues, the grave could not hold
him. Why? Because he wasn't a mere
man, he was the God-man. And once again, having been risen
from the dead, God immediately affirms his resurrection as authenticating
his sonship. You guys got that, ladies and
gentlemen? Let me show you two more passages now. Go with me
in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 1, verses 3 through 8, where
the Hebrew writer does the same thing. I've got two passages
to show you and we'll stop right there and we'll come back and
run with this again next week It's important for you to see
this because again the implications of his lordship his kingship
fall out to you and me, too I'm gonna make sure I show that to
you here before we close Remember what I said everything that Jesus
is we are in him. Do you believe that? Everything
that Jesus is we are in him. So God secured our eternal destiny
by placing us in Christ before the world began So the only way
you and I could fail to achieve glory is if Christ fail But the
only way Christ could fail is if he was not God Since God can't
lie change or fail our eternal salvation was secure in Christ
before we even had a being You guys got that y'all got that
This is where your joy is to be planted. This is where your
hope is to be planted. I This is where your faith is
to be planted is to be planted in Christ. This is why he says
he says in the world You're gonna have tribulation but be a good
cheer. I have overcome the world peace I give unto you not the
peace of the world but my peace do I give unto you and the peace
that Christ gives his people is the peace of Triumph and victory
and conquering because Christ has already conquered This is
awesome This is what we call gospel faith, by the way. I Gospel
faith is able to rise up over our troubles, and our sufferings,
and our struggles, and our bills, and our conflicts, and the demons
and devils coming after us, and the weakness of our own sinful
flesh, and to take our place with Jesus Christ, and realize
that we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. And
understand that this is just a process. This is just a process. What I'm going through, Christ
went through this. And this is how sonship is affirmed. Sonship
is not affirmed in blessing sonship is affirmed in trouble Your sonship
is not affirmed in your blessings devils get blessed till your
sonship is affirmed in your troubles When you get in trouble you cry
to God like Jesus did father father Where that come from the
Holy Ghost the spirit of adoption by which we were You didn't used
to do that when you was unsaved You cost when you was unsafe
remember that we cost we throw it up Now we say Lord help me
that's the Holy Ghost Hebrews chapter 1 verse 3 tells us that
Jesus Christ is the express image of his father's nature this is
the first line who that is Christ being the brightness of his glory
Christ is the brightness of the father's glory okay and he's
the express image of his person what that means is everything
about Christ ontologically is exactly the same with his father
so that Christ bears a perfect representation of his father's
nature that what that means is this that everything about God
The father is comprehended in God the son since they bear the
precise same attributes If this were not so christ could not
be the truth If you make an original dollar bill And then you make
a copy of that dollar bill If you vary in that copy of the
dollar bill one iota that dollar bill is not the truth Christ is the truth of God in
The beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the
Word was God the same was in the beginning with God They bore
equality of nature so that we could see God through Christ.
That's what the text is teaching If Christ were diminished or
altered or different from the father Ontologically in his nature
in any way we would not have the truth in Jesus. I And we
would have a distorted view of the Father. Are you guys following
this? Hear me now. Hear me carefully. This is important, particularly
when you're defending the deity of Christ. If Christ does not
bear precisely the same attributes of God the Father ontologically
in his nature, then we cannot see God in Jesus. Are you hearing me? But when
he says, if you see me, You've seen the Father. You know what
Jesus is saying? I'm a perfect specimen in all
of the attributes of my daddy. I mean every one of them. Is
my father eternal? Is my father omnipotent? Is my
father omniscient? Is my father all wise? Is he
all glorious? Is he all loving? Is he all kind?
Is he all holy? Is he just? Is he merciful? Will
he punish iniquity and sin? Jesus is all that. He is the
Alpha and the Omega the beginning in the end. He is the fullness
of the Godhead bodily in Christ And for those of us who are Christians,
this is why we call him hot. They are the God God with us
Emmanuel Matthew chapter 1 verse 24 and they shall call his name
Emmanuel meaning God with us God visited us In the person
of his son and revealed to us his characteristics and attributes
so that we know the father Through the son am I making some sense
now watch this now. This is beautiful what this text
is about to do for you and me Who not only been the brightness
of his glory in the express image? He expressed the precise and
exact image of his person that we're person there should be
nature But that's okay, we can use person. That's a whole theological
argument going way back down the line concerning his hypostatic
union, but that's okay. He's an exact image of his person
and Jesus is the one that is upholding all things by the word
of his what? Because the subject of the text
is Jesus, right? Verse 2 again, the word son is
in view, isn't it? Hath in these last days spoken
unto us by his what? So who opens up the chapter?
God does, right? God, who at sundry times in a
different manner spake in time past unto the fathers by the
prophets. But in these last days he's spoken to us by his what?
So God now is represented by his son, is he not? That's what
the text is saying. He's speaking to us by... Now
watch this, this is a great theological point. God is not speaking to
us through any other means about any other person. any other time
but Jesus Outside of Jesus God is not speaking In time past he spoke in dreams
and visions and metaphors and prophets with props and angels
and all that But in that first century when the king came himself
The king is doing the talking and the third person who was
sent by the king. He's only Representing the king. Are you guys hearing
me? So so the conversation is about the Sun That's what this
New Testament age is about to be a Christian is to be like
Christ Now watch this now He's upholding all things by the word
of his power when he had all by himself purged our sins. He
did heaven is shouting right there That's wrote. That's Revelation
chapter 4 and 5 the whole of heaven is shouting for you have
redeemed us from by your blood from every nation, kindred, tribe,
and tribe. The whole of heaven is shouting right there. Do you
understand that? Right here. Because this one man purged all
our sin all by himself. We had nothing to do with it.
We sat on the sidelines and watched big brother handle his business
and remove the biggest mountain in our life, which was our sin.
Crazy. This is why Jesus get all the
props in my life. And this is why the father said
this is the one in whom I'm real happy. I'm happy with him. That's what the father is saying
Because of the love of the father The love of the son toward the
father and because of the love of the son towards us the father's
happy This is wild now watch this now and then after he purged
our sin this brother sat down and at the right hand of the
majesty on high. Do you see that? You know what
we call that? We call that a monarchy. We call that an enthronement.
We call that a coronation. He came. He bore our sin. He died. He rose again. He ascended on high. He's seated
at the right hand of the majesty on high as God's vicar over the
universe. Triumphantly, Victory over the
universe. Do you guys see that? We got
one more verse to go But what I'm showing you is that this
is the way the Apostles exalted Christ This is the way he's supposed
to be exalted in preaching and teaching You're supposed to view
your Savior as the king that is higher than all the kings
of the earth Sitting on the throne with his daddy That's the way
the book of Revelation puts it Sitting on the throne with his
daddy Now look at verse 4. Look at verse 4. Being made so
much better than the angels, as he hath by what? Obtained
a more excellent ministry than they. Do you see the word inheritance? That's the whole point. Christ
is the heir. Christ is the heir. He possesses
everything. So we have a son, We have a reign,
we have an inheritance. Do you see that? We have a son,
we have a reign, we have an inheritance. Now watch this. For unto which
of the angels at any time said he, you are my son. Here's his
argument again. This day have I what? Begotten
you. And again, I will be to him what?
And he shall be to me what? And again, when he bringeth in
the first begotten into the world, he said, and let all the angels
worship him. Look at verse six. Now, if you're
smart, you see it. Verse five affirms the begottenness
of the son, having not only risen from the dead, but having now
acquired the inheritance as a consequence, because the inheritance is his
by virtue of him overcoming all things. He is seated on his throne
in heaven. But ladies and gentlemen, verse
six says, And when God brought in the first begotten into the
world, you know what that means? He was already the begotten of
the father when he came here. Somebody had come to me last
Friday. I'm way overdue. I'm going to stop here. Somebody
had come to me last Friday and then again last Saturday and
said, I was in a Bible study. My brother's not here today.
He said, I was in a Bible study with a bunch of men. And this is what
we call an opinion fest. That's why I don't really advocate
opinion fest. You know what an opinion fest is where everybody
open their Bible and everybody have an opinion. And we all got
a belly button, but that's the fastest way not
to come to true. Watch this now. That's the fastest
way not to come to true. When you sit up and let people
who don't know how to study say, I think this is what it's saying.
Then you let another person, well, now I think you're saying
this, you're wasting your time. The word of God is way too serious
for us to subordinate it to the lazy opinions of people who don't
know how to actually study the word of God to determine whether
we are dealing with it in context and making proper conclusions
that are consistent with the whole tenor of scripture. I would
say to anyone Keep your opinion to yourself. Your opinions mean
nothing. That's not Bible study. That's
just an opinion fest. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? And if you aren't a student already learning proper exegetical
labors, how to actually expound the scriptures and get at the
truth of the word of God, the likelihood of your opinion ever
being right is about the same as you getting a shuttle to the
moon. I'm talking about an AC shuttle.
I'm talking about a bus from here in the Bay Area and ending
up on the moon. And that's a bad way to deal
with God's word. It may make you emotionally feel good that
you get to contribute in the Bible study, but you're going
to be wrong. Do you know how much labor it
takes to accurately interpret scripture? Every time we open
this book, you can't just just kind of spout off notions and
expect the spirit of truth to work. Do you know what kind of
labor you and I just went through for this hour and 15 minutes?
You guys saw the labor I put in to help you understand the
importance of this concept of being begotten? How that it doesn't
merely mean the ontological relationship between the Father and the Son,
but it underscores Christ as Messiah. It underscores Him being
the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead. We are now seeing
that Him being the begotten of the Father now means that He
is heir of the universe. And the last crazy verse that
I'll pick up next week on this is Revelation 12, 5. Pull it
up. Watch this. It's crazy. You've heard this
verse before and for some of you who know a little bit about
your Bible, you wonder why this verse does this. But it's tied
directly into our text. Why does this verse do this?
In verse 1, John says, I saw another wonder in heaven. A woman
clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and 12 stars
upon her head and she cried and travail being with child. A pregnant woman clothed in the
sun with a crown on her head of 12 stars and the moon under
her feet. What kind of image is that? A
queen who was pregnant with God's king. A heavenly queen called the church
who was pregnant with God's king. See the queen rules with the
king Now you hear me The church of god is the bride of christ
And christ came through the church Do you guys believe that? Who are waiting for the consolation
of israel in the days? When uh herod sought to kill
him She pregnant with child. She brought forth her man child
And as soon as he was brought forth the devil tried to kill
him You guys know the historical account matthew stew, right?
And notice what this text says. And she brought forth a man child.
What's that talking about? The incarnation. Is that right? The incarnation. But now this
is crazy. Who was to rule all nations with
the rod of iron. Do you see that line? Psalm 2. Is that Psalm 2? Of course it
is. God the Father gives him authority
to crush the nations who rebel against him. With the rod of
iron. There it is right there again.
Now watch this, and her child was caught up to God. The Holy
Ghost skips all of the suffering from the time of his birth to
Calvary and shoots him straight to his throne in the book of
Revelation. Do you see that? I mean, if all
we have was Revelation 12 5, we wouldn't know anything about
his ministry, anything about his suffering, anything about
his death, anything about his resurrection, would we? All we
would know is about his incarnation, watch this, and his exaltation.
Why does he do that? Because the certainty with which
Christ possessed as the God-man made it sure that if he would
be incarnate, he would also be exalted. That there was no need
to work out the language of him struggling. Because for him,
it was just a matter of fulfilling the scriptures. The text is beautiful
because he was called up to God and to his what? This is this
is the this is the way that you and I are to see Jesus as caught
up to God and to his throne. And from that place, you and
I are worshiping a king who rules the universe, who has been, who
is and forever will be God's only begotten son. higher than
the kings of the earth. Father, we thank you for this
time. We thank you for the study. We thank you for the hearts that
were able to hang in there attentively with the study. May it take root
downward, bear fruit upward. May we see Christ as preeminent
the same way, Father, you see him as preeminent. May we see
Christ preeminent in our life as you have meant for him to
be Lord of our life. May we see him as preeminent
in the scriptures. May we enjoy him as the totality
of the blessings of everything that you have promised to us
in him And for us we ask that you give us traveling mercies
now as we rush home keep us and guide us And then prepare us
to worship you on sunday. We pray in jesus name. Amen. We'll see you guys next week.
God bless you