A Word in Season: The Exalted Lord (Psalm 21:13)

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What do you hope when you look out onto the world as it is today? What do you hope as you gather as God's people in his particular presence?

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What is your desire as you think about your own engagement with the Word of God and the matters for which you pray?

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In Psalm 21, David presents us with a royal psalm. There seem to be at least two directions to his expression.

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One is the blessings that God has bestowed upon the king, and then there is the desire for the king as he works out the purposes of God.

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And the expectation then is that the king will go forth triumphant and triumphing, that he will accomplish

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God's purposes, that he will exalt the righteous, that he will bring down the wicked, and that ultimately the

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Lord's glory will be seen in the earth. And that's where the psalm concludes. And that's the prayer that David brings, the testimony that he gives.

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And it reaches far beyond David's own experience. It points to great

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David's greater son, the one who was David's lord, even though he was

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David's descendant. One who was both God and king. One who was both the

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Lord God of glory and David's seed upon earth, the true son of David.

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Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. And David says, Be exalted, O Lord, in your own strength.

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We will sing and praise your power. Now is that not a good desire for us to have?

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Is that not a good appetite for us to express? When we see the misery, the confusion, the distress, the wickedness that is in the world, wicked men accusing one another of wickedness, unrighteous people shouting at others that they are being unrighteous, the unjust accusing others of injustice, the confusion too often that reigns in the professing church of Jesus Christ, our manifest weakness at so many points, our diversion away from the great things into lesser things.

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How do we pray? What do we ask? What should we expect as we gather before the God of heaven?

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Exalt yourself, O God. Be exalted. Be exalted by us also.

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Rise high, O Lord God of heaven, and do it in your own strength.

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We're praying for a display of the majesty of the God of heaven, of the king enthroned.

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We want to see his name lifted up. We want to know that God is

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God, and we want it to be known. We want to see the gospel of Jesus Christ spreading, not just through the world, but in the hearts of his people, so that it grips us more entirely.

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We are taken up with him more completely. We love him more ardently. We serve him more fervently, that we would see the honor of God in our souls and in his church, and then going out into the world, so that many come to bow the knee to the

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King of kings and the Lord of lords. And we recognize and we acknowledge and we desire that we want this to be done in God's own strength.

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It is not by puny human endeavor that these things will be accomplished. Yes, we are servants of God.

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We serve our king, but the king does not rely on our strength. We depend upon his.

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We look to him to accomplish all that we cannot, to glorify his own name, to exalt his own glory, to rise up according to his own might, and to display the mercy and the judgment upon which we depend and for which we so earnestly look.

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And our part will be to sing and praise his power. When the arm of the

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Lord is made bare, when he stretches out that strong right hand, when he shows his saving and sanctifying grace, when he brings down the ungodly and exalts his own name and brings his people with him, when the king rides in triumph and glory, it is the part of his people to testify of his glory, to rejoice in every demonstration of it now, and to begin rejoicing in anticipation of the day when we will see the consummated triumph of our great king, our

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Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. We need to train our hearts and voices now to look at, to discern, to be pleased with from our souls everything that Christ is now doing.

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And we do so in anticipation, then, of the day when we shall see the king crowned, triumphing over the wicked, drawing his people to himself, and glorifying his great name in heaven and on earth.