Latest / Reformed Thinking / The King of the Ages: A Call to Eternal Loyalty (Psalm 145:1)

Transcript

The King of the Ages: A Call to Eternal Loyalty (Psalm 145:1) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. If you're joining us today,
• 0:03
  you've come looking for a, well, a really accessible guide to one
• 0:07
  of the most doctrinally packed single verses in the entire Book
• 0:10
  of Psalms. That's right.
• 0:11
  We're going to be spending a good amount of time on Psalm 145
• 0:14
  and really just that very first verse.
• 0:17
  It's such a critical hinge in the whole structure of this
• 0:19
  altar. You've called it a doxological
• 0:21
  summit before. I think that's what it is.
• 0:23
  It sets the whole tone, you know, right before you get this
• 0:25
  final rush of the Great Hallelujah psalms from 146 all
• 0:29
  the way to 1, 50. So our mission in this deep dive
• 0:33
  is to really pull apart David's opening statement, what you're
• 0:37
  calling his deliberate oath of praise.
• 0:39
  We've got sources that let us get into the most granular
• 0:42
  details. Right, the close reading of the
• 0:44
  original Hebrew grammar, the specific theological titles that
• 0:47
  David uses. And even how this opening vow
• 0:50
  finds its its ultimate canonical fulfillment in Christ.
• 0:55
  We want you to walk away from this really understanding why
• 0:57
  this one verse is such a key to the entire worship life of a
• 1:01
  believer. And the big idea that we're
• 1:02
  working with here is this Psalm 145 verse one.
• 1:06
  It tells us that genuine worship is a chosen covenantal and word
• 1:10
  governed resolution to magnify the king not just now in time,
• 1:15
  but to continue doing that forever.
• 1:17
  It's. Not an afterthought then.
• 1:18
  Not at all. It's not a spiritual accessory,
• 1:21
  it's a vow that really defines the whole purpose of our
• 1:24
  existence. OK, so let's get into it.
• 1:25
  Let's unpack the Psalms architecture first.
• 1:28
  Before we even get to the words, we have to talk about where
• 1:30
  Psalm 145 is placed. It's right near the end of the
• 1:33
  Psalter in Book 5. And it really feels like a grand
• 1:36
  summation, doesn't it? Like everything that came before
• 1:39
  is leading up to this. It does.
• 1:40
  It acts as a culmination. The entire Psalter has covered.
• 1:44
  I mean, every human emotion you can think of.
• 1:47
  Deep lament, feelings of betrayal, high exultation.
• 1:51
  And it all ends here, with this final, unified expression of
• 1:55
  praise. So the sources would say that
• 1:57
  the ultimate point of all Old Testament theology is worship.
• 2:00
  It is. You spend time studying God's
• 2:03
  attributes and His history and His promises, not just to
• 2:07
  collect facts about Him. You're doing it so that you're
• 2:09
  equipped to approach and worship Him in a way that's fitting.
• 2:13
  And David doesn't leave this call to worship up to chance.
• 2:16
  He signals how big this is, how comprehensive, right from the
• 2:20
  start with the literary structure.
• 2:21
  Yes, the across form an A-Z hymn.
• 2:25
  Why do that? Why use an acrostic here?
• 2:27
  Well, the acrostic form is a signal of totality.
• 2:30
  It means completeness. If David is using every letter
• 2:34
  of the Hebrew alphabet from a left to Tav, he's literally
• 2:38
  saying that his praise is going to cover all the ground.
• 2:40
  OK, so it's a way of saying everything from A-Z.
• 2:43
  Exactly. It's an act of spiritual
• 2:44
  completion. It implies that all of life, all
• 2:47
  of our language, all generations, everyone is being
• 2:49
  summoned to join in this song. It's a way of saying praise must
• 2:52
  be whole, complete, all-encompassing.
• 2:55
  It has to stretch from the beginning to the end of our
• 2:57
  experience. So after setting up that
• 2:59
  comprehensive structure, David brings it down to the
• 3:02
  individual. That first line verse 1 is where
• 3:05
  he makes it personal. He says I will extol you, my God
• 3:09
  and King, and bless your name forever and ever.
• 3:11
  And notice he doesn't start by listing all of God's great acts
• 3:15
  or talking about his Kingdom first.
• 3:17
  He binds himself with a settled resolution.
• 3:20
  That decision to start with I the first person singular feels
• 3:23
  really important. It's vital.
• 3:25
  David's opening. I isn't supposed to be some
• 3:28
  private inward meditation that just ends with him.
• 3:30
  It's a model confession. It's meant to lead the
• 3:33
  congregation. It's a public declaration of his
• 3:35
  own allegiance. Yes, and right from the very
• 3:38
  word. Worship gets defined as an act
• 3:40
  of the will, a settled volitional resolve.
• 3:43
  It's not a passing impulse or, you know, some reactive emotion
• 3:46
  that only shows up when circumstances are good.
• 3:48
  It's deeply personal, but it's direction is entirely toward
• 3:52
  God. This is where we really have to
• 3:54
  get into the precision of the Hebrew.
• 3:55
  This idea of a volitional resolve is well, it's locked
• 3:58
  right into the grammar of I will extol you.
• 4:01
  The Hebrew is Aramimka. Yes, and the verb choice here is
• 4:04
  crucial if we want to understand the kind of spiritual energy
• 4:08
  that worship requires. The root of Aramimka means to be
• 4:12
  high or to be exalted. OK, now if David had used the
• 4:16
  simple verb form the quall stem, he would be saying something
• 4:19
  like I will lift up or I will raise.
• 4:22
  It would just describe a basic action.
• 4:23
  But he doesn't use that simple form.
• 4:26
  No, he uses the pull stem. So what's the difference?
• 4:28
  What does the pull stem tell us that the simple form doesn't?
• 4:31
  The pull stem conveys an intensive causative action.
• 4:34
  It's a big difference. If the quall is simply lifting
• 4:37
  something, the pull is well, It's like using a lever to exert
• 4:42
  massive spiritual and mental force to hoist something much,
• 4:45
  much heavier than you are. So David isn't just a spectator
• 4:48
  here, passively observing that God is lofty.
• 4:51
  No, he's an active agent. He's dedicating real spiritual
• 4:54
  energy to cause God to be high in the estimation of everyone
• 4:57
  listening whole assembly. Can you give us an analogy for
• 5:01
  that? So if lifting a feather is the
• 5:02
  simple qual stem, what's the spiritual weight of this pole
• 5:05
  action? OK, think of it like this.
• 5:07
  Imagine a massive engine that's currently sitting idle.
• 5:10
  God is already absolutely high. That's his nature.
• 5:13
  But in the estimation of the human heart, he's often he's
• 5:16
  often minimized or eclipsed by our own concerns, our desires,
• 5:21
  our self focus. Right, we tend to make ourselves
• 5:23
  the center. We do so.
• 5:25
  The pull stem signifies this vigorous, intentional action of
• 5:28
  the worshipper who chooses to engage that spiritual engine.
• 5:32
  It requires an active counter movement against the natural
• 5:35
  pull of our spiritual gravity, that constant pull to elevate
• 5:38
  the self instead of God. It requires vigor.
• 5:41
  It requires intentionality, and it requires them precisely
• 5:45
  because we are by nature spiritually lazy and prone to
• 5:48
  idolatry. That completely reframes
• 5:51
  worship. It's not just passive reception
• 5:53
  of a good feeling, it's a serious discipline.
• 5:55
  It's actively exerting energy against our own fallen nature.
• 5:58
  It is the grammar itself teaches us that true worship is hard
• 6:02
  work. And then you have the use of the
• 6:04
  imperfect verbal form which acts as a binding vow.
• 6:07
  It solidifies that resolve. So it's not just I might do
• 6:09
  this, it's more like. It's a statement of intention.
• 6:12
  This is what I am set on doing now and going forward.
• 6:16
  The grammar mandates that worship is defined first and
• 6:19
  foremost by who David is addressing.
• 6:22
  The direct object suffix California you is inseparable
• 6:26
  from the verb. The whole structure forces the
• 6:28
  worshipper to look away from their own feelings or needs and
• 6:31
  look toward the divine person being addressed.
• 6:34
  OK, let's shift to a really fascinating piece of the
• 6:36
  architecture here, something that speaks volumes through its
• 6:39
  absence. The missing None.
• 6:42
  Yes. So Psalm 145 is supposed to be a
• 6:44
  complete acrostic A-Z, but the verse that would correspond to
• 6:47
  the letter None is. It's just not there in the
• 6:51
  authoritative Masoretic Text. For anyone who appreciates
• 6:54
  textual study, this is one of those great aha.
• 6:56
  Moments. It is genuinely fascinating and
• 6:58
  we should first, you know, address the textual reality.
• 7:00
  And some ancient translations like the Greek Septuagint, the
• 7:03
  LXX, they often supply a verse for none.
• 7:05
  What does that supplied verse usually say?
• 7:07
  Typically something about God's faithfulness to sustain those
• 7:10
  who fall. The Dead Sea Scrolls also have a
• 7:13
  none verse, but, and this is the key point, when the Masserit
• 7:17
  standardized the Hebrew Bible, they confirmed the authoritative
• 7:21
  text without that verse. So the silence in the Hebrew
• 7:24
  tradition that we have is deeply significant.
• 7:27
  So we're dealing with an intentional silence in the
• 7:29
  structure. What is that absence, that lack
• 7:31
  of completeness? What does that imply
• 7:34
  theologically? The sources suggest that this
• 7:36
  structural incompleteness it says something about our present
• 7:39
  spiritual age. Our praise right now remains
• 7:42
  structurally incomplete. We're singing the songs of Zion,
• 7:46
  but we're still in a fractured world.
• 7:47
  Exactly. A world where God's promises are
• 7:51
  inaugurated but not yet fully consummated.
• 7:53
  The missing letter is like an echo of the fall.
• 7:56
  It forces a kind of a hermeneutical longing on the
• 7:58
  worshipper. You sense that something is
• 8:01
  missing, that our full praise can't yet be fully expressed in
• 8:04
  this broken world. That's a powerful idea.
• 8:06
  The broken acrostic becomes a kind of literary scar, a subtle
• 8:10
  reminder that the world, and by extension our worship, is not
• 8:13
  yet perfected. Precisely.
• 8:15
  Our praise is honest, but it carries the weight of this
• 8:18
  present age, and this connects directly to certain
• 8:21
  eschatological views. OK, how so?
• 8:23
  Well, if we take the view that this acrostic is meant to be
• 8:26
  perfectly complete, then the missing nun must point forward
• 8:30
  to a time of full restoration. Historically, those with more
• 8:34
  dispensational view see this silence as pointing toward the
• 8:37
  millennial Kingdom. A.
• 8:38
  Future time where every promise and every aspect of praise will
• 8:42
  be visibly and structurally fulfilled.
• 8:44
  That's the idea. So David's song, even with this
• 8:47
  structural gap, becomes an act of determined hope.
• 8:50
  It's looking toward that final completion when the King's
• 8:53
  dominion is fully manifested and there are no more missing
• 8:55
  pieces. So to some of this first part.
• 8:58
  The very grammar and structure of the opening verse tell us
• 9:01
  that worship requires active spiritual effort, and the broken
• 9:05
  structure reminds us we're still waiting for the full
• 9:07
  consummation of the King's Rule A.
• 9:09
  Perfect summary. All right, so David has bound
• 9:12
  himself to this intense resolution, the Oramimka.
• 9:15
  The next question has to be, who warrants this kind of
• 9:18
  exhaustive, ongoing devotion? And that brings us to the two
• 9:21
  titles he yokes together, the theological engine of the verse
• 9:24
  Elohimlich, my God and King. This juxtaposition is maybe the
• 9:29
  most critical theological move David makes in the whole song.
• 9:33
  He binds together 2 concepts that the fallen human heart is
• 9:36
  constantly trying to pull apart. Covenant intimacy, my God and
• 9:40
  sovereign authority King. And by combining them, he guards
• 9:44
  against the most common ways we distort who God is.
• 9:47
  Exactly. He prevents the two most common
• 9:49
  errors. Let's start with the intimate
• 9:50
  half then my God, just using that first person possess.
• 9:55
  I mean, coming from a Sinner, that's a staggering claim.
• 9:57
  It is. This is a confessional claim of
• 9:59
  belonging, not not ownership. It's the humility of grace
• 10:03
  that's been received. David is declaring that God has
• 10:06
  pledged himself to him under the terms of the covenant.
• 10:09
  So that title, my God, is really a shorthand for the whole
• 10:11
  history of salvation. It is from Abraham receiving the
• 10:15
  promise I will be your God through the giving of the law
• 10:18
  all the way to the Davidic covenant itself.
• 10:21
  Which means the praise is rooted in reconciliation and
• 10:24
  acceptance. Is that right?
• 10:26
  Absolutely. The privilege of even being able
• 10:28
  to say my God presupposes reconciliation.
• 10:31
  Sinners can't speak this way. Naturally.
• 10:33
  It's a language that's been secured by mercy.
• 10:36
  It's access that has been granted through atonement and
• 10:39
  God's covenant faithfulness. So it's the trust of a son, not
• 10:42
  something he's earned. That's it.
• 10:43
  It asserts A filial trust. The worshipper is approaching
• 10:46
  not as a distant servant, but as a beloved vassal.
• 10:50
  This provides the warmth, the confidence, the security behind
• 10:53
  David's vow. But then he immediately yokes
• 10:55
  that intimacy to this immense weight of sovereignty.
• 10:58
  King Hamlek. That's a massive counterbalance.
• 11:01
  And it has to be. The contrast is necessary.
• 11:03
  King asserts that the God who is near enough to be called my God
• 11:06
  is also the God who reigns with absolute right.
• 11:09
  The definite article Ha Phallata attached to Melek emphasizes the
• 11:13
  singular absolute nature of this sovereignty.
• 11:16
  So David, who is himself an anointed earthly king, has
• 11:20
  basically stepping down from his own throne here.
• 11:22
  In effect, yes, he is in the presence of the true and
• 11:25
  absolute sovereign of the cosmos.
• 11:27
  That moves the whole discussion of praise out of the realm of
• 11:30
  just subjective feeling or personal taste.
• 11:32
  And it puts it squarely into the realm of jurisdiction of legal
• 11:36
  allegiance. What do you mean by that?
• 11:38
  Well, if God is king, then worship is not optional, it is
• 11:43
  required. Obedience is not negotiable,
• 11:46
  it's mandated. A king has the absolute right to
• 11:50
  issue laws, to enforce justice, and to execute his will across
• 11:54
  his entire domain. So to call God king is an
• 11:57
  inherently political act in the deepest sense of that word.
• 12:00
  How does that political nature translate into the life of the
• 12:02
  worshipper today? It means we acknowledge the true
• 12:05
  government of reality and we dethrone the self when our
• 12:08
  culture or even our own hearts tells us.
• 12:10
  Be true to yourself. Follow your own heart.
• 12:12
  Psalm 145.1 comes in with this radical corrective.
• 12:16
  Deny yourself, for only the King's will is good.
• 12:18
  So worship becomes this public confession that our personal
• 12:21
  autonomy is an illusion and a sin.
• 12:23
  Yes, and that all legitimate authority flows from that one
• 12:27
  eternal throne. This concept of God's absolute
• 12:31
  reign, it leads straight into systematic theology, doesn't it?
• 12:35
  Into the confessions that summarize what the Bible
• 12:37
  teaches. It does, and it serves as a
• 12:39
  defense against a lot of modern theological errors.
• 12:42
  This title, Hamalek, is the biblical definition of God's
• 12:46
  absolute sovereignty. You can connect this
• 12:48
  historically to the theological frameworks codified by, say, the
• 12:52
  Westminster defines. When they were summarizing
• 12:54
  scripture, they wanted to make sure they affirmed the King's
• 12:56
  authority. That was central the Westminster
• 12:58
  Confession of Faith, chapter 2, Section 1.
• 13:01
  It speaks directly to this. It says God is most absolute,
• 13:04
  working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable
• 13:07
  and most righteous will. That's a systematic echo of
• 13:10
  David's confession right here. It is, and Hamalek refutes any
• 13:13
  system that tries to introduce contingency into God's being or
• 13:16
  tries to limit his knowledge. Things like open theism, which
• 13:19
  posits a God who learns or reacts to history as it happens.
• 13:22
  Or process theology, which sees God as evolving.
• 13:25
  Right, David King is immutable. He is static in his perfection
• 13:30
  but dynamic in his governance, orchestrating all things from
• 13:34
  eternity. And this provides enormous
• 13:36
  comfort, because if our salvation rests on the immutable
• 13:39
  will of the absolute King, it cannot fail.
• 13:42
  So the two titles, my God and King, they have to stand
• 13:44
  together. If you separate them, you get a
• 13:46
  theological deformity. That's exactly right.
• 13:48
  If you strip away King and you only hold on to my God, you end
• 13:52
  up with a sentimental spirituality.
• 13:54
  God becomes domesticated. He's treated as a means to our
• 13:57
  personal happiness or you know, therapeutic healing.
• 14:00
  It becomes self-centered and unserious.
• 14:02
  And the other way around. Conversely, if you emphasize
• 14:05
  King without my God, you risk a cold formalism.
• 14:08
  You can have intellectual orthodoxy without any vital
• 14:11
  communion, and that produces distance and fear, but without
• 14:14
  love. So David's genius here is in
• 14:17
  uniting them. It produces a worship that's
• 14:19
  both warm and weighty. You could call it a reverent
• 14:21
  gladness. That is the precise posture,
• 14:24
  because God is my God. Worship is approached with
• 14:27
  boldness and hope. The worshipper isn't guessing
• 14:30
  about their acceptance, but because God is king.
• 14:33
  Worship is marked by genuine humility and submission.
• 14:36
  The worshipper approaches with reverence, knowing the distance
• 14:39
  between the Creator and the creature that ensures the
• 14:42
  confidence never dissolves into casualness.
• 14:45
  OK, so we've established the posture, this active volitional
• 14:48
  resolve, and the object, the sovereign covenant God.
• 14:53
  The discussion now moves naturally to the content.
• 14:56
  What does David's resolves actually produce?
• 14:58
  He says. And I will bless your name.
• 15:00
  And the content is defined entirely by God's self
• 15:03
  disclosure, His revelation. In Scripture, God's name is so
• 15:06
  much more than a label. It's the comprehensive
• 15:09
  definition of His character, His attributes, His faithfulness,
• 15:11
  and all the mighty deeds He's made known in history.
• 15:14
  This takes us right back to those classic Old Testament
• 15:16
  encounters. It does.
• 15:18
  Think of Moses at the burning Bush in Exodus 3.
• 15:20
  I am who I am, or that great revelation of God's character in
• 15:24
  Exodus 34, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow
• 15:30
  to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
• 15:33
  So when David vows to bless that name, it means he's resolving to
• 15:37
  speak well of him publicly, to confess those specific revealed
• 15:41
  excellencies. Correct.
• 15:43
  The praise is tethered. It can't just float away into
• 15:45
  human sentiment. Worship is a response to
• 15:47
  revelation. It is not human invention or
• 15:49
  some vague spiritual feeling. This second clause immediately
• 15:53
  guards worship from drifting into mysticism or, frankly,
• 15:56
  anthropocentric imagination. So if God has revealed himself
• 15:59
  as both just and merciful, we have to confess Him as both.
• 16:03
  We can't just pick and choose the attributes we find most
• 16:05
  comfortable. That's it.
• 16:07
  The blessing has to correspond accurately to who he has
• 16:09
  revealed himself to be. And this blessing?
• 16:11
  It isn't a silent internal process.
• 16:13
  It demands verbal confessional worship.
• 16:16
  The author of Hebrews describes it as the fruit of lips that
• 16:19
  acknowledge his name. Exactly so.
• 16:21
  David Vow assumes proclamation. It means singing the truth,
• 16:26
  praying specific doctrinally saturated petitions, and
• 16:29
  publicly confessing God's excellencies.
• 16:31
  Yes, and this aligns perfectly with the New Testament mandate
• 16:34
  for worshipping in spirit and in truth.
• 16:36
  You need both. Spiritual sincerity is crucial,
• 16:39
  but it has to be joined to doctrinal reality.
• 16:42
  Spirit without truth just collapses into emotionalism,
• 16:45
  which is, you know, fleeting and subjective, but truth without
• 16:48
  spirit that decays into a rigid, dead formality.
• 16:52
  So blessing the name means the heart is engaged, but that heart
• 16:55
  is guided and moored securely to God's known objective character.
• 16:59
  Our emotions are warmed, but they are not permitted to be
• 17:02
  ungoverned. This brings us to a major point
• 17:04
  of application and Reformed thinking, the regulative
• 17:07
  principle of worship. If acceptable worship is
• 17:10
  tethered to God's name, His self disclosure, then the manner of
• 17:13
  our worship must also be determined by His revelation.
• 17:16
  This is the practical outworking of Psalm 145, verse one.
• 17:19
  The moment we detach the content and the manner of worship from
• 17:22
  God's command, we risk substituting His will with our
• 17:25
  own preferences or pragmatism or aesthetics.
• 17:27
  The Scriptures are clear that we aren't to approach God according
• 17:31
  to the imaginations and devices of men, but according to what He
• 17:35
  has instituted. Yes, the burden of proof for any
• 17:38
  element in worship lies on us, the humans, not on God.
• 17:43
  Why are the stakes so high though?
• 17:45
  Why is God so insistent about how he is worshipped?
• 17:48
  Because if we, the creature, get to determine the means of access
• 17:52
  or the content of praise, then we are subtly usurping the role
• 17:56
  of the king. We become the regulators and God
• 17:58
  becomes the recipient of our chosen creativity.
• 18:01
  This is why the Old Testament gives us such severe warnings.
• 18:04
  Let's talk about two of the most tragic examples, Nadab and Abihu
• 18:08
  and the golden calf. Let's start with Nadab and IHU.
• 18:11
  In Leviticus 10 they offered unauthorized fire which he had
• 18:15
  not commanded them. You know they weren't
• 18:17
  worshipping a false God, they were priests worshipping the
• 18:19
  true God Yahweh, but they were using means he had not
• 18:22
  instituted. So the offense was a breach of
• 18:25
  authority. It was an innovation.
• 18:26
  It was an act of autonomy in a sphere where only divine command
• 18:30
  matters, and they died instantly.
• 18:34
  Their judgement teaches us that God retains the absolute right
• 18:37
  to command the means of approach, and that genuine
• 18:40
  worship is defined by obedience, not by our sincerity or our
• 18:44
  convenience. So their failure was
• 18:46
  unauthorized worship, not idolatry.
• 18:49
  How does that contrast with the golden calf in Exodus 32?
• 18:53
  The golden calf is just as telling, but slightly different.
• 18:56
  The people declared these are your gods, O Israel, who brought
• 18:59
  you up out of the land of Egypt. They were trying to worship the
• 19:02
  true covenant God, the God of the Exodus.
• 19:05
  But they used an image, a vehicle, a festival format that
• 19:08
  they came up with themselves. Exactly.
• 19:09
  It was idolatry of means. They tried to tame the
• 19:12
  transcendent king into a form that was visually appealing,
• 19:15
  emotionally manageable for them, and culturally familiar.
• 19:18
  And God's response was fiery wrath.
• 19:21
  It necessitated Moses desperate intercession.
• 19:23
  So these two examples really drive home that God is not
• 19:26
  indifferent to our approach. The question is, never did we
• 19:29
  feel close to God? The question is, did we approach
• 19:32
  God according to His prescribed terms, and in so doing, did we
• 19:36
  truly bless His name? And that's why the Westminster
• 19:39
  Confession in 21.1 is so central.
• 19:42
  It concludes that the acceptable way of worship is instituted by
• 19:45
  himself and can't be shaped by human desire.
• 19:48
  And that principle challenges the pragmatism that's so
• 19:51
  prevalent today. Pragmatism asks what works, what
• 19:55
  draws a crowd, what is aesthetically current.
• 19:58
  David's vow forces us to ask a different set of questions.
• 20:01
  What is fitting for the king? What has he already commanded?
• 20:05
  We have to delight in God's appointed ordinary means.
• 20:08
  The reading and preaching of the Word, prayer, congregational
• 20:10
  singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and the
• 20:13
  administration of the ordinances, baptism in the
• 20:15
  Lord's Supper, worship that chases novelty just trains the
• 20:19
  congregation to need perpetual stimulation.
• 20:22
  Word regulated worship trains the soul for a long obedience
• 20:25
  rooted in the unchanging revealed name of the King.
• 20:28
  And that long obedience is essential because, as David
• 20:31
  reminds us, this praise must last forever and ever.
• 20:35
  That's the next piece. David's vow extends beyond the
• 20:38
  time he spends in the temple or even the confines of his own
• 20:41
  life. He closes the verse with Olam,
• 20:44
  weighed forever and ever. This phrase is so serious.
• 20:48
  It's not just some flowery poetic language.
• 20:51
  It carries a massive ethical and eschatological weight.
• 20:54
  It really does. It acts as a moral resolution.
• 20:57
  It lifts the act of praise out of the temporal sphere, out of,
• 21:01
  you know, the weather of a single day or the ups and downs
• 21:03
  of life, and it sets it firmly within the horizon of an
• 21:06
  everlasting Kingdom. So it pushes back against the
• 21:09
  modern idea that spirituality is something we just access when
• 21:12
  it's convenient or when we're in a good mood.
• 21:14
  Aggressively, it establishes worship as a vowed, sustained
• 21:18
  posture that has to endure all circumstances.
• 21:21
  Which makes worship a serious matter of perseverance, doesn't
• 21:23
  it it? Absolutely.
• 21:25
  Does. The ethics of perseverance are
• 21:26
  required because the human heart is well, it's volatile.
• 21:29
  We drift, we cool off. We get tired of discipline.
• 21:32
  We rationalize our neglect. David's forever and ever isn't a
• 21:36
  claim about his own strength. No, it's a confession about
• 21:39
  where true piety must be aimed at sustained, resolute,
• 21:43
  continual adoration. It's the spiritual discipline
• 21:47
  that forces us to engage in praise even when we don't feel
• 21:50
  like it, and in doing so, it trains our affections to follow
• 21:54
  our will. I think that constancy must be
• 21:56
  profoundly sanctifying. It forces us to deal with all of
• 22:00
  life's messiness, but under the constant light of God's
• 22:03
  sovereignty. It is a critical form of
• 22:05
  resistance against idolatry. When we vow to bless God forever
• 22:09
  and ever, we are training the soul to treat God as the
• 22:11
  ultimate reality. We're resisting the temptation
• 22:14
  to absolutize any created thing, whether that's our health, our
• 22:17
  financial comfort, or our control over our environment.
• 22:20
  So the worshipper is schooled to reinterpret suffering and loss
• 22:23
  under the immutable reign of God.
• 22:25
  Yes, if we only praise when things were easy, we wouldn't be
• 22:28
  worshipped the king. We be worshipping comfort.
• 22:30
  The quintessential illustration of this has to be the patient
• 22:33
  submission of Job after losing everything, his family as wealth
• 22:36
  as hell, he declares the Lord gave and the Lord has taken
• 22:39
  away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
• 22:41
  That is the practical definition of Worshipful submission.
• 22:44
  It is obeying God's inherent worthiness with your mouth and
• 22:47
  your will, even when your heart is in the deepest agony and
• 22:50
  confusion. It challenges the common
• 22:53
  cultural narrative that suffering somehow invalidates
• 22:56
  faith, Job says. Because God is good and reigns,
• 22:59
  I will bless him even when I hurt.
• 23:01
  That's the endurance that forever and ever demands.
• 23:04
  So, moving from that ethical demand to the eschatological
• 23:07
  promise, the duration of David's vow is prophetic because it
• 23:11
  matches the duration of God's reign.
• 23:12
  Yes, that's the link. David is setting his duration of
• 23:15
  praise to the clock of God's dominion.
• 23:18
  He makes this explicit later in the Psalm in verse 13.
• 23:21
  Your Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and your dominion
• 23:24
  endures throughout all generations.
• 23:27
  So since the King's rule is eternal, the creatures proper
• 23:30
  relation to the Creator, which is worship, must also be
• 23:33
  eternal. It's a relationship that we will
• 23:35
  never outgrow, even in glory. So our present worship is, in a
• 23:39
  very real sense, a rehearsal for our eternal destiny.
• 23:43
  Precisely. The biblical narrative
• 23:45
  culminates in a vision of unceasing praise.
• 23:48
  The redeemed multitude gathers around the throne, blessing the
• 23:51
  one who sits on it. Revelation 5.13 To him who sits
• 23:56
  on the throne, and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory,
• 23:59
  and might, forever and ever. Our worship in the Church today
• 24:03
  is our present already participation in the not yet
• 24:06
  Liturgy of Heaven. We're training our vocal cords
• 24:08
  and our souls for glory, and that perspective gives immense
• 24:12
  gravity and meaning to every act of praise now, even when it
• 24:15
  feels difficult or costly. It sustains our perseverance.
• 24:19
  We know we aren't striving towards some temporary
• 24:21
  experience. We're practicing for an eternal
• 24:23
  reality. And it refutes that idea of a
• 24:26
  spiritual consumer who adds, Was this worship service worth my
• 24:29
  time? And replace it with a necessary
• 24:31
  question. Was God honored as King for his
• 24:33
  everlasting reign? Now David's vow of eternal
• 24:36
  praise, as powerful as it is, it ultimately has to point outside
• 24:40
  of himself. He spoke as a king whose dynasty
• 24:42
  was pledged to be lasting. But he died.
• 24:44
  His sons failed. So the forever of God's Kingdom
• 24:47
  requires a greater day. That anticipation is what drives
• 24:50
  the whole Old Testament narrative.
• 24:52
  The promise demands A Messiah, A successor who is both Davidic, a
• 24:57
  human king and divine, capable of reigning forever.
• 25:00
  The Old Testament forces us to expect a ring that's superior to
• 25:04
  any earthly monarchy. And the New Testament identifies
• 25:07
  that King unambiguously as Jesus Christ.
• 25:09
  Absolutely. The announcement to Mary is the
• 25:12
  fulfillment. The Angel says.
• 25:14
  The Lord God will give Christ the throne of his Father David,
• 25:17
  and of his Kingdom there will be no end.
• 25:19
  Christ embodies the full address.
• 25:21
  Aloha ha melek my Goden King, because He is true God and true
• 25:25
  man. He is the faithful covenant Son
• 25:27
  and the rightful, everpasting object of all worship.
• 25:30
  And the sources are quick to point out that Christ isn't just
• 25:33
  the recipient of the praise. He is the perfect worshipper,
• 25:36
  the one who fully satisfied David's own vow.
• 25:38
  That is such a critical point of grace.
• 25:41
  Jesus perfectly loved the Father, perfectly obeyed the
• 25:43
  Father's commands, and perfectly magnified the Father's name
• 25:46
  throughout his entire life. He is the ideal covenant
• 25:49
  representative who leads the congregation in praise.
• 25:51
  Hebrews quotes Psalm 22 and puts that Worshipful confession right
• 25:56
  on Christ's lips. Yes, I will tell of your name to
• 25:58
  my brothers in the midst of the congregation.
• 26:00
  I will sing your praise. So this means the Christian's
• 26:03
  ability to praise is secured by Christ's success.
• 26:07
  It is entirely the fruit of Christ's finished work.
• 26:10
  We are in union with Him. We are redeemed worshippers.
• 26:13
  Our ability to bless God's name comes through the access that
• 26:16
  was secured by His atonement. Christian worship is
• 26:19
  participation in His perfect praise offered to the Father,
• 26:22
  and at the same time we rightly offer praise to the Son as the
• 26:25
  enthroned King. Let's turn now to the focused
• 26:28
  applications, because the rigorous theology and grammar of
• 26:31
  this one verse provides some pretty serious correctives to
• 26:34
  contemporary errors in worship. The 1st and maybe the most vital
• 26:38
  corrective is against anthropocentrism, man centered
• 26:41
  worship. David's vow is relentlessly God
• 26:44
  word. I will extol you.
• 26:45
  Bless your name. He doesn't begin with his
• 26:47
  emotional needs, his personal preferences, his demographic
• 26:49
  tastes. Not at all, and this corrects
• 26:51
  that cultural assumption where worship is evaluated by how it
• 26:54
  makes me feel or how well it matches my style.
• 26:57
  So the true test of a corporate gathering isn't whether the
• 27:00
  experience was personally fulfilling for me, but whether
• 27:03
  God was magnified as King according to his revealed truth.
• 27:07
  Absolutely. The second major corrective is
• 27:10
  against autonomy and casualness by blessing the king.
• 27:13
  Worship is defined as an act of willing submission.
• 27:17
  If God is king, worship isn't a religious hobby based on
• 27:21
  convenience. Or a social gathering based on
• 27:23
  preference. The king commands allegiance.
• 27:27
  This confronts the casualness that can reduce worship to an
• 27:30
  informal hangout or the entitlement that sees the church
• 27:33
  service as a product designed to satisfy consumer needs.
• 27:36
  When we come to worship, we are subjects presenting ourselves
• 27:39
  before the rightful sovereign, and that mandates a sense of
• 27:42
  reverence and orderliness. And the third major corrective
• 27:44
  relates back to Bless Your Name. It confronts pragmatism and that
• 27:48
  constant chase for novelty. Right, because of the content of
• 27:51
  praise is strictly tethered to revelation, it resists the
• 27:54
  impulse to treat worship as just a tool for achieving results,
• 27:57
  like increasing attendance or boosting morale.
• 28:00
  Pragmatism asks what strategy works best to draw people in.
• 28:03
  But the text, anchored in the regulative principle, asks what
• 28:07
  form is fitting for the king? What has he commanded?
• 28:11
  Exactly. Worship driven by novelty that's
• 28:13
  always seeking to be fresh or culturally current.
• 28:16
  It can't sustain forever and ever, because novelty by its
• 28:19
  very definition requires constant change.
• 28:21
  It trains the congregation to value what's fleeting rather
• 28:25
  than what's everlasting. Let's make sure we apply this
• 28:27
  through the Law and Gospel hermeneutic.
• 28:29
  We need to let the text convict us before it comforts us.
• 28:32
  The law function has to be piercing here.
• 28:34
  It does so the law gives us the requirement and the standard the
• 28:37
  requirement of total volitional praise.
• 28:40
  I will extol you. It indicts the natural man, our
• 28:43
  innate inclination to autonomy, that desire to usurp the throne
• 28:47
  and decide who we will worship and how.
• 28:49
  It's exposed as cosmic insurrection.
• 28:52
  We fail the comprehensive standard of the acrostic, and we
• 28:54
  fail the duration of forever and ever.
• 28:57
  We do. The law reveals that we are not
• 28:59
  just distracted or slightly deficient worshippers.
• 29:01
  We are rebels who are in need of amnesty.
• 29:04
  We have fallen short of the glory of the King.
• 29:06
  And if we stop there, the result is just despair.
• 29:09
  The gospel announcement has to follow.
• 29:11
  And the gospel is the powerful remedy.
• 29:13
  The announcement is this. The king died for the traitors.
• 29:17
  Christ alone fulfilled Psalm 145.1 perfectly.
• 29:21
  He lived a life of total submission, extolling the Father
• 29:24
  every second. And crucially, on the cross.
• 29:26
  The king was lifted up. Aramimka fulfilled in
• 29:29
  humiliation, bearing the penalty for our treason and our
• 29:33
  rebellion against his crown. So our renewed ability to praise
• 29:36
  now is a possibility that was purchased by blood and is
• 29:39
  empowered by our union with Him. Precisely.
• 29:42
  Our praise is no longer a burden of legal requirement.
• 29:44
  It is the spontaneous and joyful fruit of Christ.
• 29:47
  It's finished work. We are not justified because we
• 29:49
  sing loudly enough or manage to be reverent enough.
• 29:52
  We are justified because the King has declared us righteous
• 29:54
  through grace. We do not praise God to become
• 29:57
  his subjects. We praise Him because He has
• 29:59
  already made us his sons. The command I will extol is now
• 30:03
  grounded in the gospel declaration.
• 30:05
  I am his beloved. This deep dive into just one
• 30:07
  verse, Psalm 145.1, reveals that it is so much more than an
• 30:10
  opening line. It's a governing, exhaustive
• 30:13
  vow. True worship is deliberate.
• 30:15
  It's tethered to the revealed name of God, and it's offered
• 30:18
  with appropriate reverence to the Lord, who is both graciously
• 30:21
  my God and sovereign King. David's vow really sets the
• 30:25
  trajectory for the entire life of the believer.
• 30:28
  It's the purpose of life under God.
• 30:30
  Our challenge is to repent of measuring our worship by man
• 30:33
  centered metrics and to recover a word governed praise, knowing
• 30:37
  that our allegiance is due entirely to the King who bought
• 30:40
  us with his own blood. So here's a final thought for
• 30:43
  you to consider this week. How does recognizing that you're
• 30:47
  gathered worship on the Lord's Day is a conscious rehearsal for
• 30:50
  the eternal coming Kingdom? Change the way you prepare for
• 30:54
  and participate in that time. Does knowing your destination is
• 30:57
  eternal, unceasing praise change the resolve you bring to your
• 31:01
  current practice? If your destination is the
• 31:04
  eternal throne, your steps now should already be moving in that
• 31:07
  direction. Your song today is the prelude
• 31:09
  to an eternity of adoration. Until next time, keep seeking to
• 31:13
  extol the king.