Mandatory Praise

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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Please turn your Bible to Luke chapter 19. We are going to continue our preaching through Luke.

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Luke chapter 19, the preaching will be on verses 37 to 40, but I will read from verse 28 for context.

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When you have that, please stand for the reading of God's word. Luke chapter 19, beginning in verse 28.

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And when he had said these things, he went on ahead going up to Jerusalem. When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called

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Olivet, he sent two of the disciples saying, go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied on which no one has ever yet sat.

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Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, why are you untying it? You shall say this, the

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Lord has need of it. So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them.

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And as they were untying the colt, its owner said to them, why are you untying the colt? And they said, the

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Lord has need of it. And they brought it to Jesus and throwing their cloaks on the road, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set

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Jesus on it. And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. As he was drawing near, already on the way down the

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Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise

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God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen saying, bless is the

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King who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest.

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And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, teacher, rebuke your disciples. He answered,

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I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out, amen.

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Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word today.

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We need it, it directs us. We pray that it would direct us. We pray that we would be receptive to it and that it would cause us to praise you for we know that if we were silent, the very stones would cry out.

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In Jesus' name, amen. Well, I have good news for you today.

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I have very good news for you today. That is that Jesus Christ is King. He is King. That is reason for rejoicing.

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That is reason for praising. Last week, we looked at his triumphal entry on the donkey, how he is coming down from the

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Mount of Olives on the donkey. He is still at this point entering into Jerusalem and this requires a response, requires a response of praise.

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Now, on one hand, this is a very good thing. This is a very good thing. It is the message that you should be joyful, that you have a reason for joy.

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It's a very good thing, but it comes with an obligation. It comes with a requirement to be joyful, to praise the

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Lord. Those who would not praise the Lord, as they ought to do, are guilty for doing so.

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Those who do not receive this message that should produce joy and are not joyful because of it are evidencing that they do not have a work of God in them that are evidencing that God's truth does not dwell in them and are instead, not only not of the truth, but are enemies of the truth.

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They're not merely sticks in the mud that would reject the importance of praise, but rather they make themselves enemies of God.

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Perhaps as you look at your life today and you think about the past week and the days of your week and what they were filled with, whether or not they were filled with joy, sadness, depression, anxiety, and you think about those times that truly had joy and what portion of that was there, to what degree was the fact that Jesus is

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King being reflected in your life and the joy that should be reflected in your life?

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If you are a servant of Jesus Christ, if you are one who is under his kingship, then you are one who ought to be joyful.

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You are one who ought to praise him. And I want, as you read this, to be encouraged, not only in the truth that should produce joy, but also in a recognition of the obligation to joy so that as you go about your week and you see a lack of joy, you would not just continue in it as though that is acceptable, but recognize it, be able to address it and respond with joyfulness.

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In a way, the obligation itself is good news because the one who does not feel obligated is free to linger in sadness and grief and depression and anxiety, but the one who is obligated has the tools necessary to address it in themself, looking and seeing where they err and turning and praising the

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Lord as they ought, singing out, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the

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Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest. These are the words that are spoken here.

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Jesus is coming down the Mount of Olives. The whole multitude of his disciples is rejoicing. Recall that Jesus has different circles of disciples.

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He has the innermost disciples. We think of Peter and John. Outside of that, he has the 12 disciples.

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Outside of that, he sent out 70 others that we've read about in Luke chapter 10.

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And then beyond that, we have just the multitudes, all the crowds that are following after him.

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And so all the disciples are coming around and they are proclaiming that he is king.

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He is going to Jerusalem. He's going to sit on the throne of David. He is king over the people.

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Pharisees respond to this. They want the disciples rebuked. This sounds too blasphemous to call him king.

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They know the implications. They know the implications for the secular world. This will raise the ire of Rome and then it will divide the people.

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They know the religious implications that this means that he is the son of God. And they find that too intolerable a theory, even though they are supposed to be waiting for Messiah.

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When the Messiah has finally come, they do not want him. So they reject that praise.

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Now, why is it important to have a king? It's important to have a king because the king gives peace.

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King conquers enemies, the king gives peace. Who are the enemies that we might think of here?

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Well, no doubt, many of these people are anticipating that the enemy is Rome, that Rome will be defeated. And that when

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Rome is defeated, then the people of Israel will be able to live in peace, not having to deal with Rome.

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Well, the reality is that Israel crumbles long before Rome ends up crumbling centuries later.

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So this is not ultimately the peace that Christ is giving. This is not ultimately the conquering that Christ is giving.

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Think we can have our eyes open somewhat if we turn to Psalm 118.

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If you look Psalm 118, verse 26, being the verse that is quoted in this passage, blessed is he who comes in the name of the

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Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord. We can see what kind of things ought to come in mind when we hear this

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Psalm. First of all, I'll note that in verse 26, it says blessed is he who comes in the name of the

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Lord. People have made this very explicit. Rather than just saying blessed is he who comes in the name of the

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Lord, they say blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. This is not a king that is just coming in his own name either.

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This is a king coming in the name of the Lord. All the other kings come for themselves. They live for themselves and they die by themselves, but Jesus comes in the name of the

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Lord and he will live forever. This is a Psalm that describes people calling out in distress.

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In verse five, it says, out of my distress, I called on the Lord. The Lord answered me and set me free.

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So it's a Psalm where the Psalmist is calling out to the Lord, asking for salvation.

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Speaks of the salvation in the verse immediately before the one that is quoted. In verse 25, it says, save us, we pray, oh

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Lord. Oh Lord, we pray, give us success. Okay, so the people are calling out for some kind of success, some kind of salvation.

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And what is it from? If you look at verses 17 and 18. I shall not die, but I shall live and recount the deeds of the

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Lord. The Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death.

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Now, anyone could look at this and say that this is talking about a particular battle and David or however the

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Psalmist is, is being saved away from his enemies and he's being spared from death on this particular occasion.

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Yet, looking from the New Testament, knowing that this applies to Jesus Christ, knowing that it applies to all those who are in Jesus Christ, what does this speak of other than the resurrection?

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God has saved the son from death, raising him from the dead. When Jesus called out that the cup be taken from him, he still had to undergo the wrath of God.

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Yet, ultimately, that cup was taken from him. He does not suffer the wrath of God forever.

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He is raised from the dead. He is alive today. And so it is with us that we have been given new life and on that final day, after we die, should the

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Lord tarry, we will be raised from the dead if we are found in Christ Jesus, if we have trusted in him for salvation.

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And so having trusted in him for salvation, we are saved from death. What is the enemy that is spoken of here that is implied in the idea of the king saving them?

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The ultimate enemy is death, death. The ultimate enemy is the power that the accuser has to point at man and his sin and say, this one ought to die.

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Christ Jesus, having suffered the penalty on the cross, has taken that away so that we can be free, so that we can be free of sin and so that we can have eternal life.

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He has defeated death itself. And he has given us peace.

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There are several kinds of peace that you can consider with the Lord. There's the peace that we ought to have with the

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Lord, ourselves as individuals. And then there's also peace that extends beyond that.

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All of creation is in a way at war with God. We have, by Adam's sin,

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Adam not just being a representative for humanity, but in a second way, being a representative for all the earth, him being over the earth, has brought all of the earth into sin.

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Now, the earth wouldn't be accounted of guilt the same way that we are accounted of guilt, but the effects of sin, because Adam was over the world, all the world suffers from sin.

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There's destruction, there are all kinds of calamitous weather patterns that we have to endure.

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There's all kinds of death in the world. And before Adam's sin, there was no death in the world. That includes animal death.

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Animals even die because of the sin of mankind. But God has given peace, not just between him and us, but him and the rest of the world, so that when it is restored, there would be no more death at all.

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And then on top of that, it speaks of peace in heaven. Now, this is a surprising statement, peace in heaven.

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Consider the words of Job. In Job chapter 25, verse two, it says, "'Dominion and fear are with God.

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He makes peace in his high heaven.'" God has all dominion, not just on earth, but even in heaven.

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You might wonder, why is it that you would need peace in heaven? Is there a war going on in heaven? There is actually a war going on in heaven.

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Bible speaks of Satan as the prince of the power of the air. It describes angelic armies at war with each other.

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And so what God accomplishes in Jesus Christ is not just peace with mankind.

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It's not just peace with other created things on this earth, but ultimately, there's a peace in heaven.

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This peace comes in two ways. One, those who enter into his kingdom and are part of it get to enjoy his peace, and for the rest, he destroys them.

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He has guaranteed the destruction of all his enemies through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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God has accomplished this in him. And so it is not merely peace on earth, but a peace in heaven.

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Now, perhaps this calls to mind something earlier from Luke. If you remember Luke chapter two, verse 14, a passage that's read every year in late

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December, speaks of the angels in heaven calling down, a myriad of angels calling down peace on earth.

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What is happening here? There's a myriad of disciples gathered around from earth calling up to heaven, peace in heaven.

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Isn't this a wonderful picture? From Luke two all the way here to the end of Luke 19, you see a calling down of peace on earth and an announcement that peace on earth is coming, and then an announcement from earth back to heaven that peace in heaven is coming.

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It is coming through Jesus Christ who is king, not just of earth, but he is king of heaven and earth.

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He rules over all things. Now, this is a greater reign than even the reign that Adam had, even greater than the reign that he had held out for him.

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Jesus Christ not only rules over the earth. You know, like it says in Psalm eight, that what is man, you've made him a little lower than the angels, you've put all these things under him.

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So here's created Adam, he's over the globe. He has the potential to reign over the earth as this great king.

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What is Jesus accomplishing? Not only is he the second Adam, the way the Bible describes, reigning over the earth like Adam did, but he is the second

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Adam who goes beyond that, reigning over heaven as well. He is accomplishing something greater.

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There's not just the victory that gives him a dominion over the earth, but it gives them a dominion over heaven.

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The Bible speaks of him being exalted. It speaks of him uniting heaven and earth together in that exaltation.

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If I can read just a couple of passages that speak to that. Ephesians chapter one, verse nine says, he has set forth in Christ his purpose as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

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Christ sent to unite, not just the things on earth, but to unite heaven and earth together, to give peace between heaven and earth and within heaven and earth.

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It says in Colossians one, Colossians containing many of the same teachings as Ephesians, but in different words, says for in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

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This is talking about Jesus, of course. And through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

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He is making peace, not just with individuals. He is making peace with everything in heaven and on earth.

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Now, some of that peace is by conquering so that his enemies would be destroyed and they would no longer threaten that peace.

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But he is bringing together peace so that there would be no more war, so that all things would be reconciled, so that all things would be united in him.

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In that final day, we will understand how every last thing is united in him.

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This does not merely refer to a harmony between things as they exist.

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It also refers to that reconciliation of all things. Everything that's purpose is now turned either against the

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Lord or in some way that's not clearly for the Lord. You will see how all things are working together for good.

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All things are working together for the glory of his son. There are a lot of things today where you would look at it and you would say,

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I have no idea what purpose this would have for Jesus Christ and his kingdom. Maybe it has some purpose, but I don't know what it is.

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On that day when he brings all things together, every last thing, everything that exists, every step in history that has taken place, it will be shown how it comes together to glorify

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Jesus Christ and we who have trusted in him, being found in him, meaning him as our representative, just as Adam was for us before, him as our representative, us being in him, we will be able to enjoy that glory with him, him being exalted.

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And so he is not just exalted over the heavens by himself, but the

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Bible says that we are seated in the heavenly places with him. Bible says that we will one day judge angels.

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It is not merely that he has been made a little while lower than the angels, is taken up above the angels, having been glorified that way, but we having been found in him who were made a little lower than the angels are like him a little while lower than the angels as it says in Hebrews two, so that we are raised up, seated with him in the heavenly places.

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And on that final day, we'll reign in a manifest way and we will enjoy heights that Adam did not have.

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We will enjoy not just a sinless creation where everything is at some kind of peace, but an even greater peace than the one you would have found in the garden of Eden.

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This is what Jesus Christ has accomplished. And if you think about this in the context of this passage, which is about the disciples praising and about those others opposing praise, what is it that angels are particularly tasked to do?

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They do a number of things. We see that they are ministering spirits sent out for the sake of serving the elect.

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But one of the scenes that you see repeatedly through scripture is angels singing. They are given voices to sing and to praise the

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Lord. And so now, as you saw in Luke two, the angels singing down from heaven, peace on earth, and now the people singing up to heaven, peace in heaven, anticipating mankind's own exaltation with Christ, in Christ, being glorified with him, provided we suffer with him, as it says in Romans eight.

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What are we given? We are given a song. We are given a voice to praise in even a greater way than the angels can praise.

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The angels can praise God as being great. They can praise him as being just. They can even praise him as being merciful, but they cannot praise him as being merciful the way that we can praise him as being merciful.

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We can praise him as being merciful as those who do not just know propositionally his mercy, propositionally meaning, you know, as a stated fact that you can say is true, but you've never actually experienced it.

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We can say it as ones who experientially know it is true that he is merciful.

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Having experienced his mercy, having been saved from the depths of despair. This is something that Peter says the angels long to look into, but they are not capable of looking into.

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And so as the people respond to the angel song, saying peace in heaven, it anticipates something wonderful.

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The people have been given a song greater than the angel song. The mighty, magnificent, angelic beings who are more wonderful than we can understand, perhaps even than we can comprehend when we go there and learn more about them.

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Maybe there's more than we will be able to understand. And yet we have been given something that they cannot understand.

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We have been given something that they do not know experientially. We have been given salvation.

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So when it says here that they praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they have seen, what is the mighty work that they have seen other than the salvation declared in Psalm 118?

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Salvation from sin, eternal life, and anticipation of that glorious existence with Jesus Christ.

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Now, no doubt on their minds are the various kinds of miracles that they have seen.

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They've seen blind receive back their sight, the deaf hear again, demons being cast out.

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They've seen other miracles like Jesus having walked on water, the feeding of the 5 ,000. Now, you could read this passage and you could say, well,

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I didn't see any of those things. I don't have nearly as much reason to praise as they have reason to praise.

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No, you have the same reasons to praise that they do. Jesus is your King as well. The great salvation that he has provided to them, he has provided to you.

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In fact, I would argue that you have a greater reason to praise than even these original people did.

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It says that they praise him for the mighty works. What does Jesus say? Greater works than these will you do.

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If salvation is the greatest work, then how much salvation have you seen? They had the privilege of seeing a multitude enter into this kingdom.

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You know, those that would live much longer than this, they would see the spread of the kingdom throughout

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Judea and beginning to enter Gentile regions. You have seen salvation that far extends that.

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You have seen salvation go to countries, to continents, far beyond anything that they had experienced.

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And you are seeing that at an exponential rate, at a greater rate than they were seeing it.

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So it might be easy to look at this through the lens of a natural man, thinking of this in physical or natural terms and material terms, that the great works are primarily those miracles and you haven't seen them.

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A lot of people go around idolatrously longing for these things, thinking that that is where the real experience of God is.

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If I can just experience some kind of miracle. If I lived back then, well, boy, then I'd have real faith.

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No, you have seen a greater miracle. You have experienced a greater miracle. If you have trusted in Jesus Christ, if you have not trusted in Jesus Christ, I would urge you today to trust in him.

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The kind of praising that you see here, you cannot have. You might have moments of happiness or feelings of peace, but you will not have the true joy that man can only have when he is no longer at war with his maker.

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You cannot have the joy that is found through trusting in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, because it's only then that you would have true peace, true peace on earth that extends to a peace in heaven.

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And so he, so they praise him for all these mighty works.

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And it is not just a truth that naturally results in praise.

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It is a truth that obligates us to praise. It is a duty. This is a duty to praise him and not just praise him, but even as they do here, to praise him loudly.

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You know, how often do we, when we are singing, praise just quietly enough so that we're not heard.

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Now, there was a time when I thought that that might be appropriate because I didn't want to show off.

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I don't want to show off to people when I'm singing. You know, the Bible says that when you pray, don't do it loudly for others to hear.

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When you give, don't blow a trumpet and say, maybe I want to praise just so that no one else hears me.

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But in Colossians and Ephesians, what does it say? That we should instruct one another, speaking to them in hymns, songs, and spiritual songs.

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Our singing from a New Testament perspective, it's not exclusively to God. It is actually to each other.

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And depending on how you look at it, I would say it's even primarily to each other. It is about God, it is about his glory, but it is primarily intended as an encouragement to each other.

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And so you ought to sing loudly. You know, if you have voices saying the opposite here, right, the

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Pharisees saying, don't sing, how much more encouraging is it when you sing loudly and you know how it is in your experience.

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When you come to church and you hear others singing loudly, it's a lot easier for you to sing loudly when everyone's being real quiet.

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Well, you don't wanna stand out. You don't wanna sing loudly. Sing loudly.

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And God has given us a day on which to praise him. He's given us the Lord's day. This is a day that we ought to be glad.

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This is a day when we are especially to give ourselves to his praise. Many people do not, even those who would identify as Christians, treat this as a very optional day when they're feeling like it.

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There is a duty to praise. If you do not praise, the rocks will cry out. If you do not praise him, think about which side you are aligning with here.

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Are you aligning with the disciples? Are you aligning with the enemies of the disciples when you treat the praise of God as something that is optional?

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I would argue you are not aligning with the disciples when you do that. So these

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Pharisees rebuke, these Pharisees rebuke the disciples and they tell

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Jesus, get them to stop. Jesus responds that if they are silent, the very stones would cry out.

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What is it they are so upset about? Well, he is being called Lord. He is being called the Messiah. He is being called

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King. As I said, they understand the implications of what this means for civil leaders, that the civil leaders will not be happy with this, but also it has implications for the religious leaders.

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Religious leaders will lose their control. They will not be happy with this either. He is King in either sense.

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People will not be happy. Yet this is the same confession that Peter made earlier, that Jesus is the

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Son of God, that Jesus is the King. And so if Jesus, if Peter made that confession that you are

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Christ, the Christ, Son of the living God, and Jesus has affirmed him in that, how much more should he continue affirming this multitude that is praising him?

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There are going to be all kinds of people who would tell you not to praise the Lord. Now, it's rare that that happens in the actual setting of church, but it does happen in the actual setting of church.

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You can think about some of the ways that that happens. One is oftentimes parents, out of a wrong understanding of Baptist theology, will discourage their children from praying or singing, because they think that, well, prayer is something that's only accepted if there's a mediator, and if the child is not yet at an age where they really understand, they haven't been saved, and they don't have a mediator.

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Now, all of creation ought to praise the Lord. So you ought to encourage your children to sing and to even pray.

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Now, there are other ways. The last time I preached this passage, I have actually preached on this passage before, was in 2020, if anybody remembers what was happening then.

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A lot of the nation's focus was on the fact that California had outlawed singing.

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Now, they didn't talk much about this, but the singing was outlawed, particularly in buildings.

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We were meeting outside at the time, but that wasn't the law that applied to our county. In our county, they had forbidden singing, period, even outside.

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So I had the great privilege, something I'll always remember, of preaching this passage.

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The stones would cry out if we did not sing, to be able to sing confidently to the

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Lord on that day when the world is telling us, do not praise. There are other priorities that are more important than the kingship of Jesus Christ, and so you ought not to praise him, but we must praise him.

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Now, the other ways that you will experience discouragement is typically in more casual settings, right?

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Not necessarily in the formal praise of God, but just as you go about your day, and you will feel it internally that if you were to give thanks to God about something in the workplace, if you were to speak saying the name of God as the

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Lord wills, if you were to speak of the kingship of Christ in a political discussion, something like that, to make an observation about who really is king, these are things that would incur some level of ire from your interlocutors, right?

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From those that you would discuss with, and so what is our tendency? Our tendency is to not give

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Christ praise, to not say his name, but rather to keep it on the down low.

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Rather, let the stones do it. Let somebody else do this. There will be other times for that.

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Now, certainly there are appropriate ways of going about giving

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Christ praise. Strategically, you even see Paul do that when he decides before various councils to do things like saying that he's representing the

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Pharisees and to couch things in a particular way, or when he's at the Areopagus to talk about, to put things in light of the pagan's own poet's sayings, et cetera, there are strategic ways of presenting things, but they must still be presented.

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Christ must still be praised. Now, if you read this, and it says,

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I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out. The idea that comes to mind is that all of creation is designed to give

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God praise, to show his glory, and so if we do not sing, then by hyperbole, or maybe even literal reality, the rocks will sing instead.

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I believe, however, in addition to intending that, Jesus is making an additional allusion to the

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Old Testament that means that there's a second meaning going on here.

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You know, there's a double meaning. In Habakkuk 2 .11,

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I'll read a couple verses before that. Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm.

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You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many people's. You have forfeited your life. This is talking about the

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Chaldeans, the Babylonians. This is speaking of their evil in cutting off Israel from the praise of God.

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Remember, they have taken Judah and they have exiled Judah away from the temple so that they are not capable of praising the

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Lord, okay? So that's verses nine and 10. Then Habakkuk 2 .11 says, after having says, you have cut off many people's, for the stone will cry out from the wall and the beam from the woodwork respond.

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So why are the stones crying out in that context? They're not crying out, giving an alternative praise.

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It's not, okay, because God's people can't praise, the stones are going to praise. What's going on there?

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Because God's people have been cut off from praise, the stones will cry out for judgment.

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Creation, all the world looking at you will cry out for judgment against you.

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This is what it's like for those who would not support the praise of the Lord, but would maybe out of some kind of supposed good intentions to keep the peace and things like that, discourage the praise of the

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Lord. It's that all of the world is looking, all of creation is watching on you, calling out for God to end the evil thing that you are doing.

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The rocks cry out from the walls when the praise of God is discouraged and say, end this, end this one who is ending the praise of others.

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So Jesus, in saying this, is offering a double meaning. On one hand, he's saying that praise is inevitable.

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All of creation will praise the Lord. All of creation will recognize me as king. In addition, he is spelling out the judgment of those who would object to that praise, that they are like the nation of Babylon who cut off the people of Israel from the praise of God.

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They will experience the same judgment that Babylon has experienced. So this is a very serious thing before us because there are not three options.

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There's not neutrality in the middle of praising God and rejecting his praise. Rather, there are only two options.

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We are either those who praise the Lord or we are those who sit by and even by our own silence, discourage the praise of the

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Lord. So what ought we to do? First of all, we ought to be joyful.

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This demands joy. Now, it's often taught, and this is true, that because the fruit of the

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Spirit is joy, and we ought always to have the fruit of the Spirit, and the Bible also talks about right grieving and right sorrow, that you can be joyful even when you are sorrowful.

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Now, that is very true, but a lot of times, people will take that to excuse all kinds of sorrow and grief and think that they can go about their day pretty mopey, go about their life pretty mopey, and claim that they have the joy of the

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Lord because joy isn't always outer happiness, right? That is an excuse.

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Most of the Christian life should look joyful in the way that you would typically think about the word is joyful.

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Yes, sometimes there will be times when grief and sorrow are called for and joy will not look the same way, but most of the time, it does.

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And so if you look at your life, if you look at your week, and you see the great portions of it are not joyful, remember,

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Christ is King, this is reason for joy. Not only have the angels called down peace on earth, but you are able to call up peace in heaven that God has set you in the high places with Jesus Christ, and that will one day be fully manifest, and he has given you a place even above the angels so that you will one day judge them.

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Be joyful. When you see undue sadness in yourself, when you see anxiety, do not excuse it, rather rebuke it in yourself.

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See it and reject it and say that this is not how one should act, who lives under an even greater stage of the reign of Jesus Christ than even these people did who were just watching him enter the kingdom.

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Give thanks to the Lord, not just on your own, but publicly.

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You see in the Psalms the statement that David will give thanks in the great assembly before other people he will give thanks.

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Now, not just in the great assembly, but give thanks before the world as well. Do not be ashamed of speaking the name of Christ.

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If you are ashamed of speaking the name of Christ, he will be ashamed of speaking your name on that final day. If you are not one who supports the praise of God, you are one who rejects the praise of God.

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You are one against whom the stones cry out. Be willing to thank the Lord even publicly.

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Sing, sing loudly, sing to others, sing in a way that is truly honoring to God.

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And likewise, this calls for obedience, this calls for a unconditional praise.

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A lot of people would make their praise contingent on other things. Well, I will praise God when there's something in particular to praise him about.

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Jesus is still king, there's something to praise him about. I will praise him when

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I feel like it, when I feel equipped to, et cetera. No, you have been equipped, he has given you everything.

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Don't wait for the right kind of circumstances. Pharisees might be waiting for better circumstances when their opinions of Jesus are more solidified and they can understand things better and they want him to slow his roll and keep things mellow.

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No, now is the time to praise him and take advantage of the day that the

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Lord has given. He has not just given you a duty to praise in general, frequently, as you find opportunity.

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He has given you a particular day that is blocked off for you to have the opportunity to praise him, praise him on the

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Lord's day. Use your Lord's day to the max. Do not come to this day, well, first of all, do not be absent from the day.

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Many people, like I said, will treat it as optional. Secondly, come to it having prepared your heart to be ready to worship.

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You know, if you stay up late on Saturday night, if you are, you know, exhausting yourself in recreation on Saturday and not able to praise the

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Lord on Sunday, you are not preparing your heart for the time that God has blocked off in particular that you might be able to praise him well.

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This is a day that should be used, and not just the hour and a half where we're gathered here together in the morning, but use the whole day for the

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Lord. Find ways that you can praise him, that you can spend it with other believers. Join us in the evening for worship.

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These are ways that you can praise the Lord. And do not, do not, of course, silence those who would praise the

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Lord. Do not do that either by direct rebuke and do not especially, and especially do not do it by direct rebuke, but then do not do it by your silence either.

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When you are not joining in the enthusiastic praise of God, you are by your silence saying that he does not deserve praise.

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Even if you are not articulating it explicitly, that is what you are saying by your actions.

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So do not do that either. And be prepared to resist those who would tell you not to praise the

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Lord. A lot of times it will come under well -intentioned auspices and it'll be something like, you know, for the health of your neighbor, don't praise the

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Lord, right? Like we had back in 2020, even though there weren't many of us and we were all outside and there's hardly any danger at all.

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Or could be some other thing, oh, he doesn't understand that. So change the way that you speak about Jesus to be more acceptable or just don't speak about Jesus at all.

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You're going to have that thought in your mind all the time to speak about Jesus in a way that is acceptable to people.

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Not just strategic the way Paul was strategic, but that undermines the very foundation of his kingship.

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You're going to be tempted to not praise him, to not give him thanks. Do not give into that temptation.

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He is king. On that final day, you will not be embarrassed that you spoke of him.

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You will be embarrassed if you didn't speak of him. There's thinking about the singing in particular, there are some other thoughts

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I had about this. The way that people will frequently, a lot of the hymns or not even hymns, right?

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But songs, songs that you hear sung in churches do not praise God as fully as they ought.

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They're designed in order to be the thing that's acceptable to the greatest common denominator.

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Now, I don't even know if that's really what's going on explicitly in people's heads. And don't hear me as saying like the only true way to sing is from this hymnal or anything like that.

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But you look at the average songs in your typical church and they are going to be things that do not acknowledge the

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Trinity, could be sung by any kind of theistic religion. You know, just talk about God as father.

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A lot of religions believe that God is their father. You know, these are not special Christian things that declare the kingship of Jesus Christ.

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They are things that are easy for outsiders to take. Of course, there are those who would go even further and change the lyrics to be acceptable, right?

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Maybe some of you know the PCUSA when they sing in Christ alone by the

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Gettys. They don't talk about the wrath of God being satisfied because they don't like the idea of the wrath of God.

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They talk about the love of God being, it's not satisfied, it's something else, magnified.

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The love of God was magnified, not the wrath of God is satisfied because that's more acceptable.

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Talking about God's wrath, I don't know about that. Without his wrath, you don't have the good news of peace.

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You know, if there's nothing to have peace from, what is the good news of peace?

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But God has given us something excellent in salvation. And that excellence in salvation requires us to declare the fullness of that excellence, that he is king, that he has saved us from the wrath of God.

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On that final day, we will not be ashamed that we spoke his name. We will be ashamed if we did not, amen.

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Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you this day for the kingship of Jesus Christ.

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We thank you that he has entered into Jerusalem. He has sat on the throne of David. By being raised from the dead, he has been declared to be the son of God.

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We thank you that we have the excellent privilege of sitting at this point in time, seeing an even greater work than they were able to see then.

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In Hebrews 11, it speaks of us in the New Testament era as having experienced something greater than those in the

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Old Testament experience, not having received the fullness of the promise in Jesus Christ. Not only have we received that like those in the early

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New Testament, but we have seen even greater works of salvation. We have seen more people come into the kingdom.

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We have seen it spread geographically in a number far beyond what has existed even then.

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We ask that you would stir up within us a desire to praise Jesus Christ, the great king of the universe, who unites and reconciles all things in heaven and on earth.