Psalm 99 | Exalted in Holiness

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Good morning again.

Welcome.

Glad to have you with us this morning.

I am excited about what we have in front of us in the coming week as we together look to see Christ exalted.

Exalted in so many different ways.

And of course, this is a great day to be together.

It's the first of four times in the coming weeks that we have the privilege of opening our Father's letter to us to see the glory of His exalted Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

We also have the privilege today of getting a glimpse of Christ's holiness, which will then lead us to fellowship with him by means of communion.

He is exalted in holiness.

And yet he invites us into his holy presence to celebrate with him by means of the broken bread and the symbol of his blood.

That's an astonishingly gracious action by a holy God.

And it's going to be a fantastic beginning to our week together.

And of course, this is Palm Sunday, that day when we recognize and remember and honor the triumphal entry of the king into his royal city.

Luke records that moment in this way in Luke 19.

It says, as Jesus rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road.

As he was drawing near, already on the way down the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.

And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, Teacher, rebuke your disciples.

And he answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.

Praise is therefore appropriate in the presence of the king.

In fact, not only is it appropriate, it is expected.

Now, as you know, that entry into Jerusalem turned sour, and within days the king would be exalted in death, which we'll consider Friday evening.

But this morning, I want us to start our thinking on the exaltation of Christ by thinking more broadly and perhaps more eternally.

I want to set before you Jesus the King, exalted in holiness.

Now, when we think about holiness, we often go first in a moral direction.

That is, about keeping away from sin and evil and ungodliness.

And that's not untrue, but it is incomplete.

Holy means to be separate, to be unique.

And I think Hebrews chapter 7, verse 26 gives us an image of the holiness of Christ.

Hebrews 7:26

The authors of the book of Hebrews says, in chapter 7, verse 26, it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest.

Notice how the high priest is described: holy, innocent, unstained, separate from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.

That is holiness.

And seen that way, in that description, we understand then that the greatest disparity exists between an exalted holy God and us.

He is perfectly unique.

He is wholly separate from us.

He is utterly unlike us.

Think for a moment of some unlike things in our world.

Things that are unlike one another.

Might say birth and murder.

Nothing.

Something.

Chaos.

Order.

Now some might argue that those are more accurately described as opposites than things that are unlike one another.

So perhaps we should just go in an entirely different direction.

What about a cat and a toaster?

Two unlike things, right?

Or a bird and a bar of soap.

Again, two unlike things.

Now we use in our language figures of speech called similes to compare two unlike things.

So we might say the bird was as slippery as a wet bar of soap.

Or the cat jumped like hot toast out of the toaster.

You know, there's a very important simile in scripture.

Be holy.

As I am holy.

Comparing two unlike things.

God is utterly holy, and we are not.

And yet he calls us to be like him.

He is so utterly different from us.

And that's how I want us to think about God for a few moments.

I want to direct our thinking to his utter holiness, where he is so unique, so separate, so distinct that he is simply incomparable.

He is utterly unlike anything else.

And that actually is the way Scripture often describes him.

Take, for example, Psalm 40, verse 5.

Psalms 40:5

You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us.

None can compare with you.

None.

In Isaiah chapter 40, God spends an entire chapter talking about that very subject, that there's no one like him.

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

Isaiah 40, verse 18.

Isaiah 40:18

To whom then will you liken God?

Or with what likeness will you compare him?

It's a rhetorical question with the implied answer.

No one?

Nothing.

A few verses later in Isaiah 40, verse 25, to whom then will you compare me that I should be like him?

Isaiah 40:25

says the Holy One.

In his holiness, God is incomparable.

He is utterly different, unique, separate, unlike anything that we can imagine.

Now, when we think about God's incomparable holiness, Isaiah 6 often comes to mind, where Isaiah saw the Lord God Almighty high and lifted up, and the angels surrounding him were proclaiming, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

The open, unrestrained glory of God's holiness was so unlike Isaiah that he felt as though he was going to be undone in God's presence.

God's utter uniqueness and difference and separateness was going to separate every molecule in Isaiah's body.

God is so holy, so utterly separate and so unique from us that human beings in their sinfulness cannot bear to stand in his presence.

So then we lose much of the awe and astonishment that we ought to have before the procession of the triumphant king if we lose sight of his utter holiness.

You know, John in his gospel tells us that Isaiah, when he saw the Lord high and lifted up, that he was actually seeing the glory of Christ, God the Son, upon the throne, the holy throne of heaven.

So before the crowds ever celebrated Christ's kingship, Isaiah was undone before the king's holiness.

That's the kind of understanding I want us to get to this morning.

And to move us closer to that, I would like us to consider briefly Psalm 99, where we see Christ the King exalted in his holiness.

So if you have a Bible, I encourage you to open to that passage so you can follow along as we work our way through this.

I'll read it if you would like to follow along.

Again, Psalm 99.

Yahweh reigns.

Let the peoples tremble.

He sits enthroned upon the cherubim.

Let the earth quake.

Yahweh is great in Zion.

He is exalted over all the peoples.

Let them praise your great and awesome name.

Holy is he.

The king in his might loves justice.

You have established equity.

You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.

Exalt Yahweh our God.

Worship at his footstool.

Holy is he.

Moses and Aaron were among his priests.

Samuel also was among those who called upon his name.

They called to Yahweh, and he answered them.

In the pillar of cloud he spoke to them.

They kept his testimonies and the statute that he gave them.

O Yahweh our God, you answered them.

You were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings.

Exalt Yahweh our God and worship at his holy mountain.

For Yahweh our God is holy.

Amen.

Now this Psalm is the last in a series of what we might call kingship psalms.

It goes all the way back to Psalm 93.

That's where it begins.

Psalm 93 talks about Yahweh reigning in his majesty.

Then in Psalm 94, the king punishes sin.

In Psalm 95, we see the king worthy of worship.

Psalm 96, Yahweh is the great king who is to be feared and praised.

Psalm 97, Yahweh the King reigns in righteousness and glory.

And now in Psalm 98, Yahweh the King is to be praised for his salvation.

And then Psalm 99, the last of the kingship Psalms, Yahweh the King is exalted in holiness.

Did you know that the New Testament presents the Lord Jesus Christ as Yahweh incarnate?

Jesus, the Christ, is this king, exalted, enthroned in holiness in the heavens.

Here we get a glimpse of how unlike us He is.

Because this Psalm makes a singular point.

Our God is utterly holy.

He stands apart and distinct.

He is separate and unlike us.

Three times this declaration is made in nine verses.

Verse three, holy is he.

Verse five, holy is he.

Verse nine, holy is Yahweh our God.

It's unmistakable and unmissable if you read carefully.

Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh our God.

Holy, holy, holy is Christ our King.

The entire Psalm speaks to the holiness of God.

And for each statement of holiness, there is a description of the holy king.

For each of the three descriptions, there is a corresponding action that we as his people must take.

So there are three descriptions of the exalted king and three corresponding applications.

Now you notice if you look at the top of the psalm, there's no identifier as to who wrote this.

We just don't know.

So it's written by an unknown person writing on behalf of God's people about their God.

So he calls us first then to see Yahweh as the fearsome yet present king.

In Psalm 93, the first in the set of kingship songs, it begins, Yahweh reigns.

Psalm 97, Yahweh reigns.

Under no uncertain terms, God's people are to know that He reigns.

That means He rules with authority.

He is the one who establishes and maintains the standards of His kingdom.

It is to Him that all of His subjects bow.

He sits on the throne of the universe.

There is not a single part of the universe that does not proclaim Yahweh is king.

It is a declaration of fact.

As surely as the sun rises and sets, Yahweh reigns.

We're told that over and over again.

Psalm 47, verse 8.

Psalms 47:8

God reigns over the nations.

God sits on his holy throne.

Psalm 96, just a few chapters back, say among the nations the Lord reigns, yes, the world is established, it shall never be moved.

He will judge the people's inequity.

He reigns.

Therefore, the psalmist says in Psalm 99, let the peoples tremble.

He sits enthroned upon the cherubim, let the earth quake.

Tremble and quake describe the reactions to the presence of a holy God.

Both words express a shaking, an agitation.

It's a physical reaction to something.

The knowledge that Yahweh reigns causes fear such that creation shakes.

We see this demonstrated all throughout Scripture.

2 Samuel 22, verse 8.

2 Samuel 22:8

Then the earth reeled and rocked, the foundations of the heavens trembled and quaked because God was angry.

Psalm 77, verse 16.

Psalms 77:16

When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid.

Indeed, the deep trembled.

Same word.

Have you ever watched those nature or discovery channel uh shows that that show that the very deepest parts of the ocean?

You know, they go down in one of those submersible things, or even a robot goes way down, and there's no light.

It looks like you're you're watching a painting.

Because it's just it's just still.

Then all of a sudden you see this little thing swimming across the screen.

The depths down there just appear completely still.

But in the presence of a holy God, those deeps tremble.

We do not fully grasp the holiness of God if we cannot comprehend trembling with fear and awe in his presence.

If you cannot imagine God as awesome and fearsome that you tremble in his presence, then your God is too small, and he is not the holy one of Scripture.

Now that makes him sound far off and unapproachable, kind of like an ogre that you don't want to get near.

Who can be in his presence then?

Psalmists asked that question several times.

Who will ascend his holy hill if that's who he is, if he is so holy, so separate, so unique?

How can we ever get close to him?

Well, that's why the psalmist here says he sits enthroned upon the cherubim.

Cherubs appear to be the greatest of all of God's creation.

Now we're not speaking about those cute, uh puffy little uh bow and arrow things at Valentine's Day.

That's not what we're talking about.

These are holy, fearsome, powerful creatures that stand in the very presence of the holy God.

And in Hebrew, cherubim is plural.

Here the references to the Ark of the Covenant.

Moses was commanded to make a golden box, a rectangle.

And on that golden box there was to be a golden lid that fit on the top of the box.

On each end of the rectangle of that golden lid, cherubs were formed with wings spread out over the entire lid.

Exodus 25, verse 22 describes God's presence then, settling between the cherubim, guarded, as it were, by the cherubs on each end.

Exodus 25:22

That was significant.

Because in the flow of scripture, that was the first time since the Garden of Eden that God was present with his people.

He's not some far-off, miserable despot who cares nothing for his people.

No, he has chosen to be present with his people.

This awesome, fearsome, unique God is present among his people.

God's presence is what made Israel unique among all the nations.

Leave the cherubim.

Leave the Holy of Holies.

Leave the temple and depart from his people.

For the last six hundred or so years before Christ, God was no longer present with his people in that way.

Until, of course, we get to the book of Matthew.

And we are told that the baby would be born.

And they would call his name Emmanuel.

God with us.

That king came to be present with his people and never again leave them.

He promised, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Do you see?

Do you see that it is in Jesus, the true King, that we can now be in the presence of Yahweh without fear of being undone?

We tremble with awe because we see the greatness not just of his power and his majesty and his holiness, but also now of his mercy and his grace.

He who is utterly separate, who is holy and fearsome, condescended to be with his people.

That's what it says.

The Lord is great in Zion.

Zion was a term given to Jerusalem.

But over time it came to refer to all of God's people.

That's why in the book of Hebrews, the author of Hebrews says in chapter 12, You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the holy God, of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels and festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.

It's all of God's people together referred to as Zion.

God's people, as Zion, as people in God's presence, are now uniquely able to grasp his greatness, to grasp his holiness, a greatness and holiness extending over all people, whether they honor it or not.

We are to see the king as frighteningly awesome, yet graciously present with his people.

The author of Hebrews takes great pains to show us that that king is.

Is Jesus.

It says in chapter 1, verse 8 of Hebrews, But of the Son, God says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.

The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

Don't miss this.

The humble man riding into Jerusalem on a humble donkey is the great king before whom all creation trembles.

And before whom all of Zion, all of God's people bow in adoring worship.

So the proper response to that is expressed then in verse 3.

Let them praise your great and awesome name.

Holy is he.

The correct application, the right response of God's people to Christ in his exalted holiness is to praise him for his holy position.

We ought to regularly give praise that our Lord rules and reigns in power and great glory and awesome holiness.

His position, his exalted position, emphasizes his holiness.

The psalmist doesn't say that he is holy, emphasizing the person.

He emphasizes instead the adjective by putting it first holy is he.

We are to praise that exalted position.

Now beginning in verse 4, we are called on to recognize the powerful yet righteous king.

This verse, verse 4, begins in Hebrew with the noun might or strength.

So the first subject, as we read verse 4, the first subject in our minds is to be great power, great strength that is found in the king.

As we've already seen, the power of our king is so great that the earth trembles in his presence.

Now this word for might is used throughout Scripture.

It's used to refer to strong people.

It refers to a strong lion, to a strong fortress.

And it refers to the strong east wind that God brought to separate the Red Sea so that his people could walk through on dry land.

But the identifying mark here is not of something in creation, it is identifying God Himself.

So Psalm 28, 8 says, The Lord is the strength of his people.

He is the saving refuge of mankind.

Psalm 66, verse 3, say to God, praise him by saying, How awesome are your deeds, so great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you.

Psalms 66:3

The King in his might.

In our world, the maxim expressed by the British historian is proven to be true.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Now we could easily go through and develop a list of dictators and despots, kings and queens that exemplify that maxim.

Even in our own country, we have seen that truth evidenced in politicians and others who hold some kind of power.

Why is that?

Why is it that that is true?

Why do we see that again and again proven to be an accurate and truthful statement?

Well, it's very simple.

It's because of sin.

The more power sin wields, the freer reign sin possesses, the more destructive it is.

But within the Holy King, Christ the Lord, there is none of that.

That truth is a falsehood when it comes to Christ.

His power is unequaled and absolute.

Yet it is continually and always perfectly expressed in justice and inequity.

Now you might look around you and say, Well, I don't see that in my world.

That's why you need to think and read a little more broadly in Scripture.

Because we see that for a time, in his sovereign purpose, the king has allowed sin and Satan to rule in this world for a time.

But the day will come when the true king will return, and he will forever establish his reign, and it will be with justice and equity.

What then is our proper response to that kind of power and righteous rule?

What's in verse 5?

Exalt Yahweh our God, worship at his footstool.

Notice that you can't come right up to the throne.

You come to the footstool.

Why?

Holy is he.

God's position is clear.

He is exalted.

That is, he possesses by means of who he is an exalted, lifted up place.

But now in verse 5, we are called to exalt him.

How do we give him what he already possesses?

It's like giving somebody a birthday present, and what you give them is something they already have.

Except on a much greater scale.

The answer is we do it through praise.

We exalt him by proclaiming who he is and what he has done.

Specifically, in this passage, we praise his holy rule.

He is the one who rules with justice.

He is the one who rules with equity.

He always does what is right.

And so you and I can praise him for his holy rule.

We can thank him for always doing what is right in your life and in this world.

We can praise him for being so powerful that he will, no matter how bad this world gets, he will make everything right in this world.

You can praise him that his wisdom is so great that he always, always, always knows what is right.

You can praise him for hating sin and evil.

You can praise him for restraining sin.

Because the New Testament tells us that right now he restrains sin.

Imagine that it could be so much worse.

This king is so unlike us in this world.

We are unrighteous, and he is always right.

He is separate, he is unique.

Holy is he, exalted in holiness.

He is exalted, and we exalt him before others through our praise.

Now that that brings us to the third description of this holy king in verses 6 through 9.

There at the end of the Psalm, we see that this is the just yet gracious king.

Now we see here the king's grace highlighted in several ways in the life of Israel.

We see his grace exhibited in the calling of his servants, Moses and Aaron and Samuel, are listed here.

His grace is exhibited in answering prayer, in revealing his word, in forgiving sin.

You see, Israel had experienced so much of God's grace.

But God's grace is always balanced perfectly with his justice, isn't it?

So we are reminded that God is holy, and in his holiness he must deal with sin.

Israel, just as you and I experienced the consequences of their sin.

God disciplined them for their lack of repentance.

And all of that we experience.

He calls us to himself.

He answers our prayer.

He has revealed his word.

He grants forgiveness.

And he disciplines us as his children.

He is the just yet extremely gracious King.

And the fact that he is so utterly holy makes his grace even more astounding.

It's understandable then that we must exalt Yahweh our God through worship and praise.

Exalt Yahweh our God and worship at his holy mountain.

Look at who he is, look at what he has done, and respond appropriately.

But just in case we still don't get it, because sometimes we can be a little hard in the head, the psalmist gives us a concluding reason.

For Yahweh our God is holy.

That's been smoothed out in our English, and it's a bit unfortunate that our language leads to that.

Because the author of this psalm continued his pattern of emphasizing the holiness of God by putting it first.

Holy is Yahweh our God.

He is so unlike us, his creatures.

He is separate.

He is unique.

Holy, holy, holy.

Nothing else, no one else is worthy of worship, for there is no one else exalted in holiness like Christ our King.

As we remember Jesus, our Lord, riding triumphantly and humbly into the royal city of Jerusalem, we must not forget that He is the great King, exalted in holiness.

Now there's one more detail that we have to point out here.

That's a small word at the end of verse 9, the pronoun our.

But now He is our God.

Holy is our God.

His calling of us, his answering prayer, his revealing of his word, his forgiving of sin, his treating us like children brings a level of intimacy and relationship.

And so this exalted God set apart in unequaled holiness is our God.

How precious and comforting is that.

How astonishing that this utterly holy God would suffer himself to take on the form of a slave so that he might die.

A cursed death.

He who is utterly unique, wholly separate, perfectly sinless, became like one of us to bear our sin.

That is incomprehensible.

The one who is utterly unlike us and in whose presence we would be undone took it upon himself to reconcile us to God so that we might enter his utterly holy presence, not with a righteousness of our own that comes from what we do, but a righteousness and a holiness that comes from the Holy One Himself.

And so we see then that our response to this just and gracious King being ours is one of worship.

One where we come before his utter holiness, grateful, adoring, and full of praise.

And we love him because he first loved us.

Martin Luther wrote, Meditate on this love of his, and you will see his sweet consolation.

For why why was it necessary for him to die if we can obtain a good conscience by our own works and our own afflictions?

Accordingly, you will find peace only in him when you despair of yourself and your own works.

Besides, you will learn from him that just as he has received you, so he has made your sins his own, the holy God making your sins his own, and he has made his righteousness yours.

And so, my friends, the great King, exalted above all in his holiness, made a way for us to be right with him.

And in that, he gave us as unholy creatures a means to enter his great grace, to come before his holy throne and worship him and remember him.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we confess our sin to you.

We confess our sin of not recognizing and remembering how utterly unlike us you are.

Forgive our sin.

We confess that we we fail to fulfill that qualification to be holy as you are holy.

Lord Jesus, we can't.

We can't do it.

We come before you confessing we are utterly unable to be holy as you are holy.

But we desire your holiness to be given to us so that we might now, as your people, come before the table that represents your broken body and your spilled blood, that we might come before your holy throne and not be undone, but instead to offer all praise and all worship to the great King who is exalted in holiness.

Confess our sin.

Because we've sinned, we are sinners.

But we confess knowing that you are great in grace and that you forgive our sins.

So as we come to this table and we receive the bread and we receive the cup, we are reminded of the astonishing reality.

That the King exalted in holiness died, so that we might be present with him, and something to celebrate.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

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