Live Your Life as a Particular Expression of Christ's Universal Reign

Please stand for the reading of God's Word. The Old Testament reading this morning is in Isaiah 56, verses 6 through 8.

If you'd like to read along, that's page 616 in your Pew Bibles. And the foreigners who join themselves to the

Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the

Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant, these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer.

Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, I will gather yet others to him, besides those already gathered.

The New Testament reading comes from the second chapter of the book of 1 Peter. I'll begin reading in verse 4.

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

For it stands in Scripture, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

So the honor is for you who believe. But for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may be called out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Beloved, I urge you, as sojourners and exiles, to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify

God on the day of visitation. Please be seated. Good morning.

That was a little weak. Good morning. A little better. Good morning. Open your

Bibles to Psalm 47, please. Psalm 47. Psalm 47.

We'll even go through 48. Lord willing. Psalm 47.

To the choir master, a psalm of the sons of Korah. Clap your hands, all people.

Shout to God with loud songs of joy, for the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth.

He subdued peoples under us and nations under our feet. He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob, whom he loves.

Selah. God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God.

Sing praises. Sing praises to our king. Sing praises. For God is the king of all the earth.

Sing praises with a song. God reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne.

The princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham.

For the shields of the earth belong to God. He is highly exalted. A psalm of the sons of Korah.

Psalm 48. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God. His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth.

Mount Zion in the far north, the city of the great king within her citadels, God has made himself known as a fortress.

For behold, the kings assembled. They came on together. As soon as they saw it, they were astounded.

They were in panic. They took to flight. Trembling took hold of them there, anguish of a woman in labor.

By the east wind, you shattered the ships of Tarshish. As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the

Lord of hosts, in the city of our God, which God will establish forever. Selah. We have thought on your steadfast love,

O God, in the midst of your temple. As your name, O God, so your praise is reached to the ends of the earth.

Your right hand is filled with righteousness. Let Mount Zion be glad. Let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments.

Walk about Zion. Go around her. Number her towers. Consider well her ramparts.

Go through her citadels that you may tell the next generation that this is God, our

God forever and ever. He will guide us forever. Lord in heaven, you shall guide us forever.

Even in the darkest of moments and times in our individual lives and as a church, you shall guide us.

You will not abandon us. You are faithful to the end. And we know, Lord, that your reign is over all the earth.

Lord, it always has been. It always will be. And we're so thankful that as your church, we are an extension of that reign.

Your reign is one of righteousness. Lord, you make a people righteous and they live in righteousness by the power of Jesus.

And it's by that that you conquer the earth. We're so thankful that we can be a people that participate in your reign.

You are God over all the earth. May our worship and may our prayers, Lord, ever be abounding to this lofty idea, this ideal that our

God reigns. Lord, let us bring this intimate grand truth to home to bear upon our individual lives and our individual way that we live our lives and our thoughts and everything that we do to the most minor detail.

May it be in light of this grand reality that you reign and you reign in your temple and your temples throughout all the earth and your church and we get to participate.

What a grand reality this is. And I pray that you'd be with me as I proclaim this. And I pray that you'd be with the ears of those who are here before us.

May the saints be edified and furthered in their faith. May the sinners who have not repented, may they come to faith and know that the only way for them is the way of Jesus Christ.

And together may we worship your name, glorify it together with praises lifted up to eternity.

Praise be to Jesus Christ, for he has done this. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, it's the first week of the new year.

And of course, we gotta ask ourselves, how's our resolutions going? How are our New Year's resolutions are going? How many people do resolutions?

I'm calling you out, how many? Raise of hand. Anyone do resolutions? Oh man, it's really dying out, isn't it?

Oh, we got one. We got one. We got this pretty typical thing, New Year's resolutions, in which people have a typical desire to better their lives in one way or the other.

And if a Christian was going to do a resolution, which I think they're a little silly myself, but if we were going to do one, a fitting one would be to have a better prayer life.

A fitting one would be to have a better prayer life that I would be committed now, this new year, that I would have a vibrant prayer life, one that is increasing, one that is growing.

And as I've been saying since the beginning of the Psalms study, Psalms helps us with that aspect of our worship, of a better prayer life.

It teaches us to pray. And we talked about how in rawness, it teaches us to be raw with God, to bring our burdens to the

Lord, not trying to hide it, not trying to make it look better than it is, but being raw before our Lord as we bring it to Him in our time of trouble.

And truly, these resolution to be a better prayer, so to speak, is a worthy one, indeed.

Your maturity in the Lord is, you can gauge your maturity in the

Lord based off of how rich, how increasing, or what your prayer life looks like.

The prayer life to the Christian is of vital importance, not one to easily look away from or to just put on the back burner as you just focus on other things in your life.

But a mature Christian is known by his or her prayer life, both in public, but especially in private.

And so the Psalms, as I've said before, can teach us to pray. It needs to teach you to pray. If you don't know how to pray, as we should be, and of course, we all need to be growing in this, pray through the

Psalms. It will help you in that. And I've already made that point before.

And here, I wanna see a different aspect, a different angle of this here in Psalm 47 and 48. As it teaches us to have worship and prayer that is grand and large in scope.

Again, we talked about, and we talked about both aspects, but I wanna focus more on this.

We talked about how Psalms can help us to have very raw and intimate prayers as we consider our lives and individual, what's going on specifically.

But here, I think in Psalm 47, 48, it is a worship, it is a psalm, it is something that can engage our prayer life in a grand, big way, with a large scope.

Perhaps you are like me and determined to have a greater prayer life, only to run out of gas four and a half minutes into your prayer time.

You have a few things that you can say, what's going on around you, but soon you find yourself to be rather bored and you drift off to sleep or you just simply go on to other things.

Could it be that me, could it be that you, could it be that both of us, could it be that our prayer life lacks such zeal because it is not grand enough, it is not big enough, it doesn't have a large enough scope.

From the heights of such grandeur, you then settle into your own specific situation with excitement and energy in worship.

Could it be that we do not begin our worship or our prayer with this grand scope of what

God is doing as it then centers itself on our own individual life and what we are doing?

Such a grand and awesome view of God is what's going on in Psalm 47. Look at verse one, look at verse six in the text.

Verse one of Psalm 47 says, clap your hands, all you people, shout to God with loud songs of joy.

Verse two, for the Lord, the most high, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth.

And the same theme is played out if you look at verse six. Or verse seven,

I'm sorry. For God is king of all the earth, sing praises with a song. We see here, if you look, there is this excitement going on, there is this joy that's to be had.

If you see in verse one, clap your hands, all people, shout to God with loud songs of joy. Even in verse six it says, sing praises to God, one's not enough.

Sing praises, two isn't enough. Sing praises, three is enough to our king. Sing praises four times, and a fifth and a seventh.

Sing praises. So we see there's this excitement, overjoyed aspect of this psalmist as he is considering something about God.

Sing praises, sing praises, sing praises, sing praises. How much in our prayer life, as we are alone with the

Lord, does our heart need to be awakened, jolted into life that we would say, sing praises to my king.

Sing praises to him. Over and over again, it's repeated. What is this doctrine that this psalmist is laying out?

What is happening that is worth such a repeat of joyous worship? What is this doctrine that is so worthy of repeating?

What is this doctrine that is able to create such excitement in the psalmist, and may it be so with our hearts as well?

What is this doctrine? Well, look at verse two. We see that word for. Verse two.

The exuberant excitement of, clap your hands, all people, shout to God with the loud songs of joy.

This certainly isn't a Baptist worship service here. And it says in verse two, for the Lord, the

Most High, is to be feared a great king over all the earth. What's the doctrine? That this is a king we serve over all the earth, and this creates this excitement.

Clap your hands, sing loud songs of joy for our God reigns. It's the same thing, same theme.

In verse seven, for. Remember, again, sing praises, sing praises, sing praises over and over again. In verse six, verse seven, why?

For God is the king of all the earth. So sing praises with this song. So what creates this exuberant joy, ecstatic worship, a prayer life, may

I say, that is full of excitement, is that it is opened up with this thought, with this understanding that our

God reigns over all the world, all the earth. This is our God. Well, let's pause here then for a moment.

Let's pause and ask ourselves, why such a doctrine doesn't have such a place of worship in my heart, or in your heart?

Why can this, if it's so lofty, so beautiful, so wonderful, so worthy of repeat, why does such a doctrine seem to be so dry in my heart?

Why doesn't it feed such a strong prayer life that the extra sleep in the morning or the extra television show in the evening just doesn't quite compare to?

Why can it be so dry to me? God reigns over all the earth. So if this created happy worship in the saints of old, it can and should create such worship in the saints today.

Now remember, coming to the faith, coming to understand the Lord by his sovereign grasp of my heart and realizing that the people in scriptures aren't like a different creature, but rather it is a connection with us as the saints, the saints of old, the saints today.

If it created a worship in their heart back then, it shall surely create a worship in our heart today.

The same spirit that is in you was in the saints of that day.

So if they shall worship, if they shall be excited, if they shall be in happy praise in their prayer, then why shouldn't

I? Why shouldn't you? There is a truth there for the taking for us saints that instead of my prayer life being dead after four minutes,

I am just beginning with excitement over the wonderful things God is doing as king over the world.

And it starts with knowing how God reigns over the world. If you're wondering, why doesn't that stir an excitement in my heart?

Why doesn't that make me sing out in praise in my prayer life and sing out in praise to my

God in my prayer? You know, you can sing in your prayer time to God. It's a little weird at first, but I encourage you to do it.

Why doesn't this create this stir in my heart? Well, perhaps we just need to remind ourselves of how God is reigning in the earth, of how

God is reigning all throughout the world, how God is reigning over the peoples. Because he does it in a particular way that affects specifically every one of his saints here today.

So as your prayer life starts in the heights of the wonder of God's reign over the earth, it ends up affecting every single minor aspect of your life today.

So our prayer life has both an intimacy on an individual level fueled by a worship of God and what he is doing on the larger level.

A huge scope, bringing it down into your own particular life that makes it vibrant and filled with meaning, filled with lively prayer.

Because I guarantee you your Christian life, how vibrant it may be, is reflective in how vibrant your prayer life is.

Does that make sense? How vibrant of a Christian life you're living for the Lord is going to be reflected in your private worship or prayer life with the

Lord. They are connected. Don't think that they're not. And the first step in making this a reality in your own prayer life, worship life, is to know how

God is reigning over the nations because it applies to you very particularly.

Is that weird? Look at verses 3 through 4. It says how. And again, we'll see it's a theme also in this psalm.

Look at verses 3 through 4. How does he reign over the nations? Well, look at 3. He subdued peoples under us and nations under our feet.

He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob, whom he loves, Selah. Now we know, we can understand, we have enough

Old Testament reading in our heads to know that the nearness or the, what's the word

I'm looking for, the immediate context of that is how God used

Israel to subdue the nations of the Canaanites, right? That there was an

Israelite people who were wanderers. They didn't have any place to call their home, but God had provided them a promised land and they went in and they conquered through Joshua and especially later on the kings, especially

King David. He was a conqueror. And so the immediate context here of how God reigns over the nations, over the world, over the peoples is how

Israel subdued the people to inherit the promised land, right? But it also, we can't help but notice that it is looking past itself.

One thing that we say often as we're reading the Old Testament into the new, we need to understand that the Old Testament is one big shadow and the

New Testament is one big substance, okay? You've heard me and Tim say that before, especially in Hebrews, you're gonna hear that a lot, that it is all about the shadows and then the substance belongs to Jesus and his kingdom.

The shadow of the kingdom of Israel, the shadow of everything that's going on there was to point ahead to a greater reality of the substance belonging to Jesus Christ and his reign, okay?

And so we see here a shadow. We see here a shadow of how God, it's like, it's like it.

It's getting closer, it's pointing to it, but it's not quite it yet, right? That God reigns over the nations, he subdues the people, but we see that it's a shadow because it's not quite all the nations, all the people, is it?

It was some people, it was a corner of the world, but it wasn't all the world that he subdued during that time.

And another way that we can see that this is not quite pointing to that, although it is something that is attributing to it, is how if you look at verses one through four, that section there, we see that the people who are subdued seem to be happy about it.

I don't know if you read enough history, but typically people who are subdued militarily don't like it too much, right?

That's what's going on with Ukraine. They don't really like so much what's going on there. They're not happy about it, they're not joyful about it.

But here we have a God who is showing his reign through the world by subduing the people, and people seem to be happy about it.

If we read in the Old Testament, the people were not happy about being taken over in Canaan.

They weren't happy about it. So this is pointed at something else. It's pointing to something deeper, pointing to something that affects us.

But we see moving forward, not only does he reign through conquering, but he does it through his temple.

Very important point. Not only does he reign through subduing a people, but he does it through his temple.

Look at verse 5. God has gone up with a shout, the

Lord with the sound of a trumpet. So he subdued a people under us, nations under our feet, he chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves,

Selah, God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Now those words reflect very much when

David conquered Jerusalem and brought the tabernacle or the temple. The tabernacle is a temple only with wheels, so to speak, it can move.

And so he brought the presence of God, the temple, to Jerusalem. And when that happened, the same kind of language is used.

Listen to me as I recite 2 Samuel 6, 15 to you. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the

Lord to Jerusalem after David had conquered it with shouting and with the sound of the horn or the trumpet.

So we see this as the same language being used and most people understand this to be referring here in verse 5 with a shout, the sound of a trumpet to when

David conquered Jerusalem, subdued the people there, and brought the temple up into Jerusalem.

David wasn't just a conqueror over Jerusalem for a vain glory for his own glory.

That wasn't what David was doing there. All the other kings of the world, they conquer for their own glory. David was not conquering

Jerusalem for vain glory like the other kings. He did it to establish God's presence there and that's why he was so excited.

So excited was he, dancing around like a fool that his wife was embarrassed by him. He was excited because God reigns through his temple.

He's conquering Jerusalem and now the temple is going to be established there in Jerusalem and it filled him with excitement.

God reigns. But even this section of the psalm here we see is filled with a shadowy substance.

It's pointing to something greater than itself. Look at verse 7. For God is the king of all the earth.

Right? So you see in verse 5 he gone up with a shout Lord with the sound of a trumpet and our minds go to David taking out

Jerusalem putting the temple there and we see in verse 6 sing praises, sing praises, sing praises, sing praises.

Verse 7. For God is the king of all the earth sing praises with a psalm. You see this is just a corner of the earth.

Jerusalem was just one city, one part of the earth. Just a corner of it. So that it's like you know what you see in the

Old Testament a lot is like these truths that make sense to Israel but bursting forth at the seams is something that needs to be what it's pointing to.

Something needs to come to fulfill it and make it really go. Right? And we see this here. Right?

It's like we see Israel here but it's bursting at the seams calling for something greater and that greater is something we will get to momentarily.

But one thing I want to put in your mind now as we move forward is God reigns over the nations and he does it through subduing peoples and he does it through his temple slash throne.

Look at verse 8. God reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne.

Now of course his holy throne we think of his throne we think of the heavens right? Where his throne is up at the heavens that's where Jesus is at the right hand of the

Father but God has always willed that he would have a throne or he would have a special presence a place where he reigns specifically on the earth through the temple.

And I think this is what's going on here in this psalm a major theme that praise God he reigns through the world and he does it through his temple or his presence or his throne on the earth as it mirrors the throne in heaven.

And look at verse 9. All the peoples gather in joy. Right? The same theme. He's king over all the nations all the peoples.

Look at verse 9. The princes of the peoples gather as the people of the

God of Abraham for the shields of the earth of the earth belong to God he is highly exalted.

Now it's no wonder why he would mention Abraham here because the promise to Abraham was what?

That I would be a God to you and your descendants and from your descendants would come the blessings to the nations to all peoples.

Right? And so here the mention of Abraham brings our mind back to the covenant God made with Abraham that I would bless the nations through you.

And so God would rule the nations or bless the nations through Abraham and so here we see that being celebrated here in this psalm as a whole.

That the peoples the princes the leaders right? And their people would come and gather to God through this temple by this temple reigning

God. So the temple here we see becomes the medium that God rules the world through.

The temple becomes the medium that God rules the world through and Jerusalem is the city that protects surrounds houses that blessed temple.

And so I don't think it's any coincidence as we go on to Psalm 48 that it's all about the beauty of Jerusalem.

It's all about the beauty of the temple. It's all about the beauty of Jerusalem as it holds the temple. It's all about the beauty that involves.

Look at 1 -3 the first stanza there. Great is the psalm of the sons of Korah and we see in verse 1

Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God. His holy mountains beautiful in elevation is the joy of all the earth

Mount Zion in the far north the city of the great king. With inner citadels God has made himself known as a fortress.

No matter what direction you came from entering Jerusalem you were always going up because it was situated on a mountain

Mount Zion or Jerusalem and as you approached it back then you would have been amazed at the huge walls the huge fortifications and the wonderful temple that was within it.

It would have been a breathtaking sight to behold right? And this is celebrating that reality right?

As it's celebrating the nature of this city that God has chosen to place his temple in.

It's so impressive the psalmist says it's a sight in verses 4 -8 that the peoples come to want to assail it or attack it and they're so amazed by it that they just run away.

Look at verses 4 -8 For behold the kings assembled they came on together as soon as they saw it they were astounded they were in panic they took to flight trembling took hold of them there anguished as of a woman in labor by the east wind you shattered the ships of Tarshish as we have heard so we have seen in the city of the

Lord of hosts and the city of our God which God will establish forever Selah. So impressive is the sight of that of that blessed city that it sends

God's enemies running. And the only event that this kind of makes sense with in the

Old Testament is when the Assyrian army came and surrounded and besieged

Jerusalem right they had conquered Israel they're on their way to conquer Judah now they're besieging

Jerusalem they're ready to do it but then all of a sudden they just take to flight and they run away. We see this played out if you want to go there in your own study

Isaiah 36 -37 2 Kings 18 -19 2 Chronicles 32 when the army of Assyria breaks its siege of Jerusalem and runs back home because the angel of the

Lord made it take to flight that's the only thing as far as I'm concerned is what I've read that resembles an army like this coming and being so astounded it runs away of course it doesn't fit it perfectly because again

I think it's pointing to something more something bigger if you notice in verses 9 -11 such protection against the people of the world causes people such protection against the people of the world causes

God's people to rejoice as God displaces righteous power in the world by his temple look at verses 9 -11 we have thought on your steadfast love

O God his protection in the midst of your temple as your name O God so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth your right hand is filled with the righteousness let mount

Zion be glad let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgment so it's like this understanding that God protects his people from the nations who want to harm the temple harm

Jerusalem God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God God baptizing them in the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe me. And behold,

I am with you always to the end of the age." All authority has been given to Jesus so much that he has the audacity to tell all the nations, all the people to obey him.

Imagine if I try telling you all right now, obey me, obey me. You would look at me and be like, who are you, right?

But Jesus Christ is king over the nations, over the world. He has accomplished victory through his death and resurrection.

And so he says, all authority has been given to me. Go therefore and tell people to obey me, i .e.

believe in the gospel and live for me. And what does he say? Behold, I am with you.

I am with you always to the end of the age. Jesus came down as the true temple of God.

He goes back to be with the Father, but that does not mean the temple went back to be with the Father. But he says, I will be with you.

My presence will be with you, i .e. the church becomes the very temple of God. 2 ,000 years later, if you believe this gospel message of Jesus Christ, that he is truly

God, truly man, that he has taken on the sins of his people, that those who believe upon him shall not perish but have eternal life, and now be part of him.

If you believe this message, Paul says in Ephesians 2, 19 through 22, so then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

Christ Jesus himself being the very cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the

Lord. In him you also are being built together in a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Beloved, Jesus had this reality in mind, that he is the temple, he's making a temple through his body, and so that's why he could easily talk about the destruction of Jerusalem, easily talk about the destruction of the temple, because he came to bring the actual reality.

Jesus didn't blush at teaching about this destruction of the physical temple, physical

Jerusalem, because he knew that was only pointed to when he would establish his temple on the earth, and reigns today through it, through us, through you, through the church.

What a reality that is. So we look at Psalm 48 .10

again, as your name, Psalm 48 .10, as your name, O God, so your praises reaches to the ends of the earth.

As your name reaches the ends of the earth, so therefore your praises go along with it. Your right hand is filled with righteousness.

How does that happen? Because Jesus has created a people of righteousness that spreads to all the earth.

They are made righteous by the King, and they do acts of righteousness by his work, and so we become, as we are followers of Jesus, those who have repented of our sin, believed upon him for salvation, made righteous, and now what is our lives made up of?

That I would then be righteous among the nations. That my life would be an extension of Jesus's righteousness that he has given to me.

That is the whole purpose for you, Christian, is that you would be the reign of Jesus on the earth.

Christ, as King, is spreading his reign of righteousness through all the earth.

That is what he has been doing these past 2 ,000 years, and as you live your particular life today, you are an extension of that righteous reign.

Do you understand how lofty and wonderful that is, that he would choose you to be an extension of the

King's righteousness? This is beyond anything. How am I even, how can

I be made such a vessel but by the work of the King? As you rely upon Jesus to make you right with God, to make you righteous, as you rely upon Jesus to cause you to reflect him in all that you do, in acts of righteousness, the joy of being so subdued before the

King is extended to others through your word and deeds. Truly, Jesus's reign is not one of sword and killing and bringing this sort of subduing of the people, but his is a subduing of joy, of peace, of righteousness, that people would come humbly before him and count it all joy to follow this

King. It truly is a greater kingdom than what David ever could have provided. Psalm 47, look at 47 again, 6 through 7, seeing praises to God, seeing praises, seeing praises to our

King, seeing praises. Can you see why that's repeated over and over again? Again, as a pastor,

I used to be very worried about repeating myself too much, but now I'm just concerned that if I'm going to repeat myself, which

I think I should, let it be something worth repeating. I see a scripture that repeats itself over and over again, and the thing that it repeats itself with is something worth repeating.

Seeing praises, seeing praises, seeing praises, seeing praises, seeing praises. Why? Because our

God rules the earth with righteousness in his right hand, and he does it through wicked sinners like us.

How can we but sing praises? Five times isn't enough, six times isn't enough. Is there enough sing praises?

God is king over all the earth, and he graciously has chosen you to show and reveal his reign.

Sometimes in the midst of our living our lives, we get to a kind of like a tunnel vision, a tunnel vision of our problems, of our concerns, and we get trapped in it, right?

We think of what's going on in our lives, and we have this tunnel vision that's all we see, that is all we're looking at, and we all fall into this.

The thing that we need so badly is to go up like 40 ,000 feet in the air and start our prayer life there.

Let's not start it always. Now sometimes there is a time, I'm not trying to give a law here to where this is how you always need to do it.

Sometimes we are so distraught we just need to go, oh Lord, help me, right? Just like we see in the Psalms, I am overburdened here, right?

Sometimes we need to do that, but maybe, may I press this upon you that perhaps if you have a prayer life that just is as boring as boring can be, maybe you need to start the prayer life at 40 ,000 feet in the air.

Start 40 ,000 feet in the air and praise God for his rule over the nations, and then start proclaiming the gospel to yourselves as you praise him for ruling through a temple.

That temple is made up of everyone the king has died for and made righteous. So you see how that reign of God over the nations, it starts to find its particular manifestation in your own life by that redemption story.

Start with this amazingness that God, you do rule the nations, and you rule in righteousness, and that righteousness is found in the temple that Jesus Christ has made by his work on the cross.

That temple is made up of everyone the king has died for and made righteous. Praise God through prayer that you are made righteous by the love of the king, subdued not by sword but by a song of peace.

And as the vantage point gets lower and lower and more zoned in or honed in, view your day coming up, that particular day, that particular moment, as an extension of this great lofty truth that God reigns over all the earth through righteousness.

That your day now, your moment, your next breath, your next dealings with the world or whatever you got to do, is an extension of this great reign that God is doing over all the earth.

Everything becomes an extension from that. When the reign of Jesus Christ is manifesting itself through our own worship and prayer life, it has a way to make us view the darkness as something to be conquered by the power of Jesus's right arm.

It is such an easy thing for us in our day in which everything seems to be going the wrong direction.

For us to look at darkness as something that cannot be penetrated. It's done. It's over. Let's just wait for Jesus to return.

Of course there's nothing wrong with wanting Jesus to return and making all things right as this becomes the full and true reality.

But beloved, that's not the kind of attitude. We're not supposed to just wait in our bomb shelters. With this kind of attitude, as we see the reign of Jesus Christ through all the nations manifest in itself, particularly in my life, in this moment,

I start to see light shine forth in my own light, in my own family, in my own community around me. And the darkness becomes something not so much that's unassailable, but rather something to be conquered by the church.

The history of the world, 2 ,000 years now, has been made up of people being made righteous in God and conquering the world with this righteous gospel.

May this be this huge view of God. May it come down intimately in our own lives and may we then see everything that we're going through in this large view of what

God is doing over all the world. Walk about Zion. Go around her.

Number her towers. Consider well her ramparts. Go through her citadels that you may tell the next generation that this is

God, our God, forever and ever. He will guide us forever. Our God in heaven, I thank you that you have chosen people like us, weak in all our ways, sinners, non -deserving of your goodness.

But Jesus Christ, being the king that he is, the conqueror that he is, he has subdued us by his word, by his love, by his grace.

Lord, I'm so thankful that we see this in shadowed form in the Old Testament and we see it pointed to Jesus.

And so our hearts are full of gratitude that you rule over the nations. You do it through your temple. That temple is

Jesus and the extension of him is your people. Lord, we are unworthy of such a lofty, such a lofty, such a lofty thing.

So let us not go into our worship alone with you. Let us not go into worship together with the corporate body without being amazed by this reality that you reign over the world and you do it through Jesus, through us, while as we follow him.

Let our days be filled with happy worship and let it so overflow to the people around us that they can't help but happily subdue themselves, be subdued by God themselves.

Thank you, Lord, for this, for this purpose that we have in our lives. And may every single minute detail of our life come to conformity to this great, grand purpose so that we truly are singing praises all our days.