Prayer Night Sermon (Psalm 2 And God's Sovereignty)

Thank you for listening to the Shepherd's Church podcast. This is our Wednesday night service that is focused on prayer and walking through the

Psalms together. We hope that you are blessed and we hope that you will join us as we pray for revival.

We live in a world that is begging for us to be afraid. We live in a world that is begging for us to view the situations that happen in our life as seemingly random circumstances where we turn on the news and we see all of these different random events.

We get random updates on our phone, random emails on our phone. Everything looks random, feels random, and that makes us afraid.

Because if there's no order in the world, if there's no control to the universe, if there's no one who's holding all things in their hands and sort of keeping everything from falling apart at the seams, then we're basically just a roller coaster headed nowhere and we're not even sure if the tracks are going to get us all the way back to the station.

Maybe we fall off the cliff at some point in the future. This world is crazy, that is for sure, but this world is not out of control.

That is one of the lies that the enemy will end up using against you, is making you feel like that your life is out of control, your relationships are out of control, this world is out of control, politics are out of control.

I mean, look everywhere you want to look and it appears, it has the appearance as though it's out of control, but it actually is not.

You see, because we know from the Scriptures that God is in control. He's in heaven and He does everything that He pleases.

No plan of the Lord can be thwarted. He does everything that He desires. He channels the hearts of kings like water.

He does accomplish whatever He sets about to accomplish. So the Lord is in control, even though this world seemingly looks like it's spinning out of control all the time.

I love this quote by R .C. Sproul in one of his books, I can't remember where it was from, but this is what he says,

In Reformed theology, if God is not sovereign over the entire created order, then

He is not sovereign at all. The term sovereignty too easily becomes a chimera.

If God is not sovereign, then He is not God. And that's a really strong statement by Dr.

Sproul, but what it means is that truly and utterly, if God is not in control of all things, then

He is limited in some way, and if God is limited in some way, then He cannot be God, because God by definition is unlimited, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, immutable.

So if there's something at all that God is limited and cannot do, therefore He is not God, so God must be in control of all things.

He must be in control of the traffic accident that took someone's life, He must be in control of the ebbs and the flows of nations,

He must be in control of the hard situations that happen in your life if He is to be

God. Now I know that we like to have a sort of plausible deniability with God, where we look at God and say, well,

God didn't intend for that to happen, and God would never allow something like that to happen, and God is up in heaven observing,

He allowed it to happen, but He didn't cause it to happen. I think we get into a dangerous position there when we treat

God like He's an impotent deity sitting up in heaven with tears in His eyes, wondering why all the bad things in the world happens with no power whatsoever to be sovereign over it, reign over it, rule over it, govern over it.

I think that's just a flawed view of God. At the end of Job's life, Job comes to this place where he realizes that all of the bad that happened to him, all of the things that he suffered from, all of the various different things that were going on in his life that caused him to question

God, at the end of his life caused him to praise God because he realized that there was comfort in the sovereignty of God.

He realized that when he, Job, saw how massive and powerful and beautiful and glorious that God truly is, and that He really does control all things, that He really is in control over all things, when

Job saw that, it changed him. It changed him from being a skeptic and from a grumbler into a man who praised, and he praised

God all the rest of his days. So I think sovereignty is an incredibly important doctrine for us as Christians because it allows us not to be discouraged and fearful and broken over the state of the world, it allows us to rest in trust that God is in control of the world.

Jesus says, you're going to have many problems in this world, but fear not, I have overcome the world. He says in Matthew 28, I probably tell you guys this verse every single week and that's okay, but all authority in heaven and earth has been given to Jesus.

He's in control and He's reigning. So we have to understand what sovereignty is.

We have to, because if we don't understand sovereignty, we won't be able to sleep at night.

We won't be able to have peace in our hearts. We will constantly be thinking that the world is out of control and that we're just one collapse away from failure, that we're one comment away from our lives falling apart.

Those are the kinds of thoughts that lead people to despair and depression and anxiety, and yet there's so much freedom in knowing the sovereignty of God.

Louis Burkhoff describes sovereignty this way, he says, God's dominion over the whole universe that He has created,

His rule over all things so as to secure the accomplishment of His divine purposes.

That means that God not only rules over the entire created order, but He does so in such a way to accomplish every single one of His plans and purposes.

It says in the Bible that He is working out the good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Well, one of the purposes of God is to use the hardships and the trials and the pains of your life to accomplish your good in Him.

James says, count it all joy, my brothers, when you experience trials of various kinds, because you know that God is using that as a good gift in your life to mature you and sanctify you and bring you into a deeper and richer and more fulfilling faith.

It says that in Philippians 129, that it's God's gracious gift that you would suffer.

God's in control of those things, they're not random, they're not haphazard. When we say that God is sovereign, we say that everything happens according to His plan,

His provision, and His will. It's just like when Joseph's brothers looked at Joseph and they said, basically, are you going to kill us after all that we did to you?

We sold you into slavery, we did all manner of evil against you, now our father's dead, and we're wondering,

Joseph, are you going to kill us now, now that our dad is gone? Joseph said to them very clearly, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

So at the same time that they meant an action for evil and for wickedness,

God meant and purposed and used their wickedness and evil as a part of His sovereign plan to save the nation of Israel whenever the famine came to Egypt, or whenever the famine came to the world.

So God uses the sinfulness of human beings to accomplish

His purpose, but let us not act like God is not in control of all of those things. He most definitely is in control.

He is sovereign, which gives us great comfort. The Belgic Confession really starts to get at this when it says in Article 13, we believe that this good

God, good God, after He created all things, did not abandon them to chance or fortune, but leads and governs them according to His holy will in such a way that nothing happens in this world without His orderly arrangement, and that means nothing.

Now, when you think about it, we tend to think about our situations as capricious, but God is good.

Think about it like this, if God is infinitely good and infinitely holy, then even the things that feel capricious in your life, those situations, are still under the hand and under the providence of a good and holy and wise and caring

God. The wounds that He afflicts to you, on you, are for your good.

The things that He allows to happen to you are for your good. God is entirely and totally sovereign.

Nothing happens in the world that is outside of His hand. Now, today, we're going to talk about an aspect of His sovereignty, which is how

He rules over all things and how He is in charge of the nations. And what we're going to see in Psalm 2 is that God is sovereign over a lot of things, but He gives and shares

His sovereignty with His Son, who is going to inherit the earth as His possession and who is going to rule over the earth through His kingdom, the

Church. And what we're going to see is, from this, that we can have great confidence and trust, even in a world that is so sinful and broken, because King Jesus is the one who owns it, who is reigning over it, and who will eventually make it in accordance with His image.

He will transform this earth. Whether in this life or in the next life, He will transform this earth into a habitable place and not into the place that we see every single night and evening on the news.

So, with that, let us read Psalm 2 together. Let us pray through this psalm together after we finish discussing it, and let us go home resting in the sovereignty of this great and holy

God. So let's read. Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing?

The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the

Lord and against His anointed, saying, Let us tear the fetters apart and cast away the cords from us.

But he who sits in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them. Then He will speak to them in His anger, and He will terrify them in His fury, saying,

But as for me, I have installed my king upon Zion, upon my holy mountain.

And I will surely tell of the degrees of the Lord. He said to me, You are my son.

Today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will surely give you the nations as your inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as your possession.

You shall break them with a rod of iron, and you shall shatter them like earthen vessels. Now, therefore,

O kings, show discernment and take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship the

Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the

Son that He not become angry with you, and you perish in the way, for His wrath may soon be kindled.

His blessing are upon all of those who take refuge in Him. Let us pray.

Lord God, thank you so much for this day and for all of the many blessings that you have given us. Thank you that we get to study a psalm every single week, and we get to see, not even exhaustively, but we get to see a part of what it is that you are teaching us in these psalms.

Lord, I pray that you would be with me tonight as I share some of the truths that come out of this passage, knowing, again, that there's not time to cover these things exhaustively.

But Lord, I pray that these things would encourage your people, build up your people, that it would write your word, your spirit would write your word on your people, and that,

Lord, we would be a rejoicing people who pray and who seek your face, in Christ's name, amen. The first thing that it says is that the

Lord is sovereign over the uproar. It says in the text, why are the nations in uproar, especially considering that the

Lord is sovereign? Why do the nations riot? Why do the nations gather together in protest?

Why do the nations cause these massive, dramatic scenes? Why do the nations cause trouble?

Why does one nation go to war against one another? Why are the nations disquieted in their souls?

Why are people panicking? Why are people globally afraid of a virus? These are all questions that the psalmist is asking.

Why are the nations in uproar when God himself is sovereign? And the rhetorical answer to the question is that the nations in the world do not know

God. You see, the subtle assumption in this passage is that if you know

God, if you know his character, if you know who he has been revealed in scripture to be, then you're not gonna be in an uproar.

You are not gonna be disquieted and broken and anxious. You're not gonna be those things because you know him and you know that he is sovereign, whereas the nations actually are in an uproar because they don't know

God. So that's the first thing. His sovereignty actually quiets our heart so that we're no longer in an uproar, but we understand who he is.

That's the first thing. The second thing that it says is the Lord is sovereign over the plans of the wicked.

This is also in verse one. It says, why do the peoples devise vain things?

Why do they devise empty things or evil things? Why are people spending 80, 90, 100 years of their life wasting it away with plans and goals and org charts and trying to figure out how to manipulate people and how to gain an advantage and how to rise the ranks of a political structure, how to have more influence or how to have more this or more that?

Why do people devise all of these vain and wicked plans that have nothing at all to do with God?

It's because they don't know God. When you truly know God, your mind is not captivated by trying to have everything in the world or by trying to subdue everything in the world or by trying to make all of these plans that are never going to come true.

Your mind is not captivated by bucket lists and by dreams and by fantasies. When you know

God, your mind is rooted in truth. The people are devising vile and vain things because they do not know

God. The Christian is resting not upon what they can do, but they're resting upon what

Christ has done. They're resting not upon the vain thing that he has done, but the very good thing that he has done.

There's a difference in the way that the Christian thinks and the way that the world thinks. The world rests on empty, shallow, superficial, vain things, vanities.

The Christian rests on deep, eternal, immovable truths that can never be taken away.

Things like the grace of God, the mercy of God, the love of God, the wrath of God, the justice of God, the kindness of God.

All of these things that Christians are dwelling upon are not vain things. They're deep and heavy and glorious things that cause the

Christian not to be in an uproar, but cause the Christian to rest in the sovereignty of God.

See, when you know that God is good and you know that God is all powerful and holy, when you know those three things, he's perfectly holy, all powerful, and all good, there's nothing in the world that you can't suffer without losing hope.

You don't devise vain strategies and plans whenever you get into trouble like the world does.

You rest in the sovereignty of God. Here's an example. I've seen Christians before who whenever trouble hits their life, they're automatically scribbling on a piece of paper and a pen saying, how are we gonna get out of this one?

How are we gonna navigate this one? How are we gonna do, do, do, do, do? And yet, I've seen some

Christians that really get this, that after 40, 50, 60 years of resting and trusting in God, their heart doesn't skip a beat.

They don't get anxious or upset. They simply say, this is another opportunity for me to rest and trust in the holy, righteous, good, and all -powerful

God. The third thing that this passage teaches us that God is sovereign over the kings and the nations, it says in verse two, the kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel against the

Lord and against his anointed. But yet, the very subtle point that Psalm 2 is making is that all of that is in vain.

They're devising vanity because who in the world could ever think to go up against the

Lord? It's the people who don't know him. The people who don't know him know his character and his righteousness.

The people who don't know his power and his majesty, the people who may on paper understand some theological points about God, but they don't know

God. They don't have a relationship with God. The kings and the pagans of the world look at this

God and say that we can get rid of him. Frederick Nietzsche said that God is dead.

He declared that throughout the course of history, you've had important people, kings and dictators and artists and people in Hollywood and atheists here and there in halls of different colleges and universities who thought that they could get rid of God, who thought that they could take a stand against the

Almighty, and yet it says in verse four that he who sits in the heaven laughs at them.

He laughs at them like a seven -foot -tall giant laughs at an ant who thinks that they can shake their little tentacles at the giant and topple him.

And even that is an unbefitting example because we are much smaller and much more depraved and much more frail than an ant.

An ant is actually a pretty robust creature, but we're much more frail than that, and God is infinitely bigger than some seven -foot -tall

Shaquille O 'Neal giant. We are frail and finite in the presence of so powerful and holy of a

God, and he laughs at the arrogance that he sees on earth. God is not up in heaven like we are down on earth afraid.

God's not watching the news and saying, oh dear, Joe Biden's really messing it up right now, or that Nancy Pelosi, or maybe in the former administration, oh, that Trump, he's really gonna thwart my plans.

God's not like that. God is in control, not the Republicans, not the

Democrats, not the Senate, not the House, not the judiciary. God is in control, not those things.

Those things he laughs at, and he says, why would people put their hope in those things? Why would people put their hope in entertainment?

Why would people put their hope in a friend? Why would people ultimately put their hope in anything other than God?

He's the only one who deserves for us to put our hope in. He's sovereign over kings, over nations.

He's sovereign over China. He's sovereign over Russia. He's sovereign over North Korea. He's sovereign over America. The direction of these nations is in his hand, and he is fully, and totally, and perfectly sovereign and in charge.

Nothing happens outside of his will. Nothing is a surprise to him. He is in control.

So what we've seen here is that God does, or God is three things when it comes to his sovereignty in this passage.

He's sovereign over the uproar of the people. He's sovereign over the plans of the wicked, and he's sovereign over kings and nations and every ruler and every authority, bar none.

Now we're gonna look at three things that God does. We just saw three things that he is in relation to his sovereignty.

Now we're gonna look at three things that he does, and again, we're gonna mention for the second time that God laughs at human inability.

And this is not to say that God is flippant about human inability, he's not. God laughs in the sense of we are so arrogant and prideful that we think that we know better than God.

That's what he laughs at. For those who sincerely seek his face and who wanna know him, and who wanna worship him, and who wanna see him for who he truly is, the

Lord doesn't laugh at those people. The Lord looks for humble heart, and whenever he sees that in us, he doesn't laugh.

He smiles, he shows love and affection and grace, but he doesn't laugh.

The Lord laughs at the wicked. The Lord laughs at their inability. The Lord laughs at the most powerful politicians and the most powerful governments and the most powerful lockdown policies and the most powerful whatever you wanna dream up.

We just talked about on the broadcast today about the law that came out in Canada that says that people can't try to convert homosexuals out of their homosexuality.

The Lord laughs at that. How arrogant and how prideful do they think they are that they think that they could ban

God's people from sharing the truth of Christ to a broken world? How arrogant do they think they are?

And how arrogant do they think they're gonna be when they lock up God's people in jail for these sorts of crimes?

God laughs at that, and God will avenge that because God is holy and righteous and cares for his people.

We also see that God will speak to the nations in his anger if they continue to defy him, that's verse five.

It says he will speak to them in his anger and he will terrify them in his fury. When God reveals himself to us, he doesn't speak to us in his anger, he speaks to us in his love on the basis of what

Christ Jesus has done. But when God speaks to the nations, they have no covering, they have no

Christ, they have no, they're not blanketed like we are in the royal robes of Jesus. They're not protected by his righteousness and shielded by his sacrifice.

When God speaks to the nations, they will be in absolute and utter terror.

They will fall down on their faces and they will experience the fury of God. That's why

Philippians two says that, that every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, some will bow willingly, some will bow in absolute mortal fear and terror because when

God finally reveals himself to the wicked who thought that they were so big and who thought that they were so powerful and who thought that they were something so special, when he finally reveals himself to them, they will be reduced to nothing but madness and terror because of how heavy his holiness actually is.

So God is sovereign over the uproar, over the plans of the wicked and over the nations and the way that God shows his sovereignty and the way that God reveals who he is is that he laughs at their inability, he speaks to the nations in his anger and he terrifies them with his gospel.

And you may be like, how did we get gospel out of that? Because look at verse six, which is the sort of hinge in the passage.

Up to verse six, everything is about God, but verse six onward is talking about the son of God, the one that God is going to send.

It says, but as for me, I have installed my king. That's God has installed his king upon Zion, that's

Jerusalem, his holy mountain. So right now here in the passage, we see that God has an intention by the time that he writes this passage, and we're not exactly sure when this particular

Psalm was written, but God has an intention to send his one and only son to be king over his people.

God used Israel in the Old Testament, but let us not be confused. God always used

Israel as a shadow of the greater thing that was going to come, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ. God installed

David as a king, not because David was so great, but he wanted something very, very base and small and finite to be able to point to the infinite majesty of his son, the son of David, who would become eternal king.

God installed Israel as a nation to point to the church. He installed David as a king to point to his reign.

Every part of the Old Testament, as we say time and time again, is all about Jesus. So the

Lord is sovereign over these things, but yet he's sending his son to inherit that sovereignty over all things, and that begins on the holy hill of Zion, which is

Calvary. Most kings actually are coronated in a ceremony of peace and safety and tranquility.

They're put on a throne without any threats. They have a crown that's put upon their head that is soft and cushioned and is perfectly fit to their head.

Jesus had a crown put on his head of thorns. His throne was a Roman cross where he was nailed to it and beaten and bruised because of our sin.

Jesus's coronation was not in peace and in safety and security. His coronation was in the hostility of the cross, going to war with Satan, sin, and death on our behalf to win us back to God.

God installed his son as king over the entire earth on a cross, which is such a beautiful and fascinating story.

It continues on. I will surely tell the decree of the Lord, he said to me. You are my son today.

I've begotten you, and you will ask me, and I will surely give you the nations, which is exactly what the

New Testament, when it cites this verse, cites this verse about Jesus, that Jesus, after he died and raised from the dead, ascended to heaven.

And God, when Jesus ascended to the heaven, gave him a throne to sit on, and a king sits down when he rules.

So God gave him a throne to sit on and rule over, and God gave him the nations as a possession, as an inheritance for his obedience.

This psalm is telling us right away, even as far back as the Old Testament, that Jesus is gonna come, that Jesus is gonna make the sovereign reign of God real on earth as it is in heaven, and he's going to reign over the nations.

He's gonna own the nations. It means that Jesus owns America. He owns Canada, he owns

Mexico, he owns Peru and Bolivia and Belize, he owns Africa and Europe and Asia.

Jesus owns every square inch of planet Earth. None of it belongs to us.

None of it belongs to the dictators and tyrants and the powerful people. God owns it all, and he's given it all to his son

Christ as a reward for his obedience. He's installed on a holy hill called

Calvary. He ascends as a royal son to heaven to sit on the throne. He's given the earth as his possession, and he's given reign, rule, and dominion over all the peoples.

Look at what it says in verse nine. It says that you, that's Jesus, shall break them, that's the nations, with a rod of iron, and you shall scatter them like earthenware, like pottery broken into pieces.

Jesus will scatter them because they're broken and their purpose is gone. Jesus is the one who's going to rule with an iron rod, and you may say, well,

Jesus is loving and peaceful and kind. Yeah, that's true, but his reign, his kingdom reign is going to be powerful.

He's gonna have dominion. This psalm is telling us that on Calvary, Jesus began his reign.

In the throne room of heaven, Jesus took over authority and control of the nations, and now through his church, he is reigning over the world with an iron scepter, scattering the nations to the four winds of the earth, and yet also winning and conquering and building up a people who are going to be his people forever.

Verse 10 says, now therefore, O kings, show discernment. Take warning, O judges the earth.

Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Jesus, even in the Old Testament, is warning the future kings of earth that you better be careful because this is my world.

Don't afflict my people. Don't think that you're gonna be devising these wicked and vain plans and trying to overthrow my reign.

You're not. I laugh at that, is what God says. Jesus tells them to show discernment and to take warning that he is now in control of the world.

I wish that someone who is near and close to Biden or some of the senators in the

Senate or even some of our own representatives here in Massachusetts, I wish that God, or I wish that someone was near them enough to simply look at them and say, you need to be careful how you reign in this particular position that you've been given because you are using

God's authority, borrowed authority for wicked purposes. And you better be careful because the one who wields the iron scepter will break you like earthenware vessels into 1 ,000 pieces.

You need to be careful the way that you exert your authority. You need to be humble and diligent and loving in the way that you exert your authority because this great king is watching you and he will hold you to account.

Verse 12 says, do homage to the son that he does not become angry with you so that you would not perish in the way for his wrath may soon be kindled.

How blessed is all who take refuge in him. And this is where we're gonna end.

The sovereignty of God reigns over the entire earth, over the uproars and the plans of the wicked and the nations, and God laughs at that.

He speaks in anger towards that and he will reveal himself, which will be a terror to all of the nations.

But yet God in the kindness of his will for his own people has chosen not to treat his people that way.

He doesn't speak to us with anger. He doesn't speak to us with terror. He sent his son who on the holy hill of Zion was crucified for our sins so that God would not speak to us anymore with anger but would speak to us with love so that God would not laugh at our inability but would smile at the fact that we've been called sons and daughters of the most high

God. The Lord terrifies the wicked but the Lord enlivens the righteous and we're only righteous because of him.

Christ has been given dominion and authority and rule in this nation. Well, Christ has shared that rule with us, the church.

You see, the sovereignty of God was the gift that Jesus received. His sovereign reign was the gift that he received for his obedience.

Now Jesus rules the world. Jesus is in control over all of it. He's been given dominion and rule and authority and you and I as Christians can take refuge in him if and only if we know him.

For all others, they will not take refuge in him.

That his wrath will be soon kindled on the day that he returns. So now what

I want us to do is I want us to spend a little bit of time thanking God for all of the various areas that he is sovereign over.

I wanna spend some time worshiping God for his own son, the Christ who came and on the holy hill of Zion rescued and redeemed and won us as his possession.

And then I wanna spend some time at the very end focused on what it means to actually experience refuge in his shelter, shelter in his wings.

And it's at that point that we will ask prayer requests towards that end. Lord, would you shelter me? Would you let me hide in your refuge in this area, that area?

So we will praise him. We will thank Christ and we will ask our request in Jesus' name, amen.