The Divine Priest King & His Holy People - Psalm 110 (Mar. 22, 2026)

Well, if you have a Bible, I invite you to turn with me to Psalten.

Psalm 110, it's on page six in your bulletin and page five thirty-five in the Bible under a seat around you.

And while you turn there, I just want to let you know, my goal this morning is to show you just how big this psalm is in the Bible.

Iconic even.

What is the most iconic thing in your life?

What comes to mind for you most when I talk about something that is iconic?

For many, it might be something like the Twin Towers in New York City.

And in order to understand the significance of the Twin Towers, one would have to look backward and understand how New York City is the head of the financial world, the center of it.

And that the Twin Towers represented that 20th century, late 20th century commercial finance powerhouse that New York City is.

But one would not only need to look back before the Twin Towers to see what they are a product of.

In order to understand all of the post-9-11 wars and age that we live in, especially in America, one would not be able to do that without being able to understand and know about what happened on 9-11.

And in that way, the Twin Towers are iconic.

Well, this morning I want to persuade you that Psalm 110 is not only one of the most iconic passages in the scriptures, but it is iconic for us as New Covenant believers.

And we must know that Psalm 110 is about an actual historic person, Jesus of Nazareth.

You see, God revealed to King David about a thousand years before Jesus of Nazareth was born that one of David's physical descendants would be a great king.

God said this to David When your time comes and you rest with your ancestors, that is, when you die, I will raise up after you your descendant, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.

He is the one who will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

We know from rabbinical records that the original audience of Psalm 110 received it with an understanding that this was about the Davidic messianic king, the promised monarch descendant of David.

Jesus himself demonstrates this understanding in multiple gospels and even boldly claimed to be this monarch.

Jesus, in fact, matches Daniel 7, the passage that we started the service with, with Psalm 110, to claim that he is David's Lord.

He is the Davidic King.

He is the Daniel 7 Son of Man.

And the apostles and the early church, without exception, held that this Psalm was not only about that Davidic messianic king, but that Jesus Christ Himself is this one.

There has never been any prominent wing of the church that has taught Psalm 110 being about anything other than Jesus Christ in his resurrected, glorified, ascended state where he is now in heaven.

So, with that in view, then, what is the meaning of this Psalm and how does it instruct us as New Covenant believers?

The main point of Psalm 110 is that our Lord Jesus Christ is a divine, exalted priest king who will achieve righteous judgment on the earth.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is a divine, exalted priest king who will achieve righteous judgment on the earth.

And we'll see this main point conveyed in four attributes of the king, as well as our response to him as his people.

First, Jesus is the exalted, divine, enthroned King we trust.

David draws attention to what he calls a declaration from Yahweh to David's Lord, that is his David's descendant.

This declaration highlights the divinity, exaltation, and authority of the recipient of the declaration.

Look with me at who gives the declaration.

This is the declaration of the Lord.

Now, if you have the Christian Standard Bible or any other modern English translation, the word, that first use of the word Lord is probably all caps.

And this signifies that the original word there is not actually Lord, it's the word Yahweh.

It is the name of God that he gave to Moses in his first encounter with him.

It is the covenant name of the one creator God, the one who freed his people from Egypt in the book of Exodus, the one who parted the waters, the one who sent manna every day.

That name.

The one whose glory is matchless, and the one who shares his glory with no one.

He is the one making this declaration.

And who does Yahweh make the declaration to?

Look with me at verse 1.

This is the declaration of the Lord Yahweh to my Lord, David says.

David describes this person receiving the declaration as being David's Lord.

So David understood God's promise to him that one day he would have a descendant on the throne who would, in fact, even be a greater king than David was.

And hence David is referring to this monarch descendant of his as Lord.

And this word means master.

It means boss, owner, the one in charge.

He says, of me.

He is my Lord.

He is my master.

He is my owner.

The one in charge of me.

And what is this declaration?

Sit at my right hand, Yahweh says.

Now the original audience would have understood this as Yahweh saying, Sit on my throne, the place of all honor and power and authority, the place of all adoration, the place of all fame, the throne above every other throne, the driver's seat of the universe.

Whoever sits there will receive the highest reverence.

This will be the name above all names, the one to whom every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.

Lord, you are the ruler of all.

And this one, David's descendant, is the one who has been selected, specifically chosen by Yahweh to come and to sit on that throne.

We can rush through these verses too quickly and miss this.

This word, this sense of being chosen.

The word there in the Old Testament is the word we translate to Messiah.

In Greek, Christ.

They mean the same thing.

Being chosen, being selected, which we see here.

This word is not specifically used, but it's this concept that we see.

You, you and only you come sit on this throne of power.

You sit at my right hand, and no one else.

This one being spoken to is the chosen one, the selected one, the anointed one, the Christ, the Messiah.

And what is he being chosen to do?

To sit.

Sitting conveys completion.

It's done.

The honor is given.

And he is now sitting to rule.

And how long is he to sit and rule?

Look at verse 1.

Until I make your enemies your footstool.

So the ruling one is to sit and rule at the right hand of Yahweh until the ruling one's enemies become his footstool.

What is a footstool?

Well, it's a piece of furniture that one rests his feet on, or in some cases, may even stand on to get something.

And the footstool always highlights the one using it.

God is saying to David's Lord, King Jesus, that he is to rule on Yahweh's throne until every one of his enemies is a footstool for him.

And what that means is that when one looks at David's Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ, it will be impossible to look at him and understand him without knowing that every single one of his enemies is in subjugation to him.

It's under him, is under his rule.

And it will be impossible to look at any one of his enemies without realizing and knowing them in relation to where they stand to King Jesus and that they are in subjection to him.

So to know any of Jesus' enemies will be to know that they are subjected to King Jesus.

That's what that means.

The astounding question that we should be asking is how could this one true living covenant God who does not share his glory with anyone, how can he give his throne to this human being, this human descendant of David?

This only makes sense in light of the ancient teaching of the church, that there is one God in three persons, all three fully divine, co-glorious, co-eternal, united yet distinct from one another.

And that here we see Yahweh the Father saying to Yahweh the Son in Jesus Christ, come sit on this throne.

The New Testament teaches that this has already happened and that Jesus is sitting on this throne now.

This is central to the proclamation of the gospel from the apostles in the book of Acts.

This psalm is actually the most quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament.

The New Testament is covered with quotes from Psalm 110 and allusions to it.

Essentially, anywhere that there is discussion about Jesus being on the throne, being at the right hand of power, being at the right hand of God, ruling and reigning, that is pointing to Psalm 110.Anywhere that it that mentions Jesus ruling as high priest, making intercession for his people, pleading his blood, pointing back to Psalm 110.

There's so much of the Old Testament that one must understand to understand Psalm 110.

And yet it is impossible to understand the New Testament without grasping Psalm 110.

If we've really understood that, there would probably be more of us with Psalm 110 framed and put on our wall somewhere.

It is everywhere in the New Testament.

It is iconic.

Look here, the reward for Jesus' finished mission to save his people.

He who was sent to give his life as a ransom is now told to come rule.

And it is this dual emphasis that makes Jesus so trustworthy to us.

He sacrificed himself and he gave all to sacrifice for his people.

And now he is permanently exalted to this highest place of total and absolute authority.

His divinity, his exaltation, his authority make him supremely trustworthy.

Is this how you have seen Jesus?

Is this how you have understood the Christian life?

Or have you reduced the Christian life to some rules of things that you would wear, or things that you would say or not say?

Or some principles.

Trusting Jesus Christ for salvation.

And ongoing matters of life is not a leap in the dark.

It is the most rational thing you could ever do.

You can base your life on what he says.

Secondly, Jesus is the beautiful King to whom we offer our lives.

Look with me at verses two and three, where we see the risen King Jesus possesses four things.

We'll look at them one by one here.

First, the enthroned Lord Jesus Christ is described as having a scepter.

Look at verse 2.

The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion.

Yahweh, the true living creator, God, and covenant with his people, will spread the Davidic Messiah King's scepter from the place of Zion or Israel.

A scepter is something we don't see a lot of anymore.

It's a sort of rod or staff that is representative of the power of the one that has it, like a judge's gavel, perhaps.

But it's something beyond authority.

It's a symbol of one's ability to exercise that authority and to bring circumstances into conformity with his rule.

And this will happen from Zion.

His rule will extend the way that sunlight extends, and his authority, his authority will extend beyond Zion.

We'll see here in a moment where it will go, but for now, what is this king doing with his scepter and with his kingly rule?

What's he doing?

Look at verse 2 for the answer.

The king has enemies.

And he's actively ruling over them from his throne.

Look, rule over your surrounding enemies.

The word here for surrounding means in the midst of.

In the middle of.

It conveys not only presence, but being surrounded by.

This same word is used in Psalm 138, verse 7.

Psalms 138:7

Though I walk, here's the word, in the midst of trouble, you will preserve me.

In other words, when I am surrounded by trouble, you will preserve me.

It's the same concept.

Rule over the enemies that you are in the midst of, O king.

So the king is on his throne, he's reigning, he's carrying out his will while surrounded by enemies.

And he does not need their permission, and their opposition to him does not diminish his spreading power, his authority and dominion.

Does not is not diminished in any degree by his enemies.

Okay, so he has a scepter, he has enemies.

Look at what else he has.

King Jesus has a people.

Verse 3 Your people will volunteer on your day of battle.

This word volunteer has connections with the free will offering mentioned earlier in Exodus.

Exodus 35, 29.

So the Israelites brought a free will offering to the Lord, all the men and women whose hearts prompted them to bring something for all the work that the Lord through Moses had commanded to be done.

So Psalm 110 is saying here that on the day of the king's rule, a rule in which he will have those opposing him even while he is ruling, on this day there are going to be people who are with him who are not compelled to fight for him, but they do so willingly, even amid violent opposition, eagerly making free will offerings.

And what are their offerings?

This is you, this is me.

What are our offerings?

It's our own lives.

Romans 12, 1 shows this well.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercies, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

This is your true worship.

Well, why would we do this?

Why would we offer ourselves to the king in the day of his battle?

Well, it has to do with who he is and who we are.

First, who he is.

David refers to this time of offering to the king as your day of battle.

The word here for battle is the word for power or valor, military strength and might.

It's specifically used of kings and armies and empires in the scripture.

The king is showing his power.

This is while he's on his throne with enemies.

And what does it look like?

It looks like the gospel of Jesus Christ being sent out among the nations.

The good news of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, his restoration and rule and his reign, the transformation of his people from being his enemies to being his forgiven servants, from being wayward rebels to being his adopted children.

And we respond by offering ourselves freely to him because something has happened to us.

We, as fallen descendants of Adam and Eve, who once hid from God in shame and embarrassment and in guilt are now freely offering ourselves to him without shame, without embarrassment, without guilt.

And by implication, the king is not ashamed of us either.

We are described as his people.

What has happened?

We have been redeemed.

We have been forgiven and restored.

We have received a new spirit that changes everything in us.

John Owen put it this way about this freedom, this liberty of our Father's family, which we have as sons and as children, being adopted by Christ through the Spirit, is a spiritual largeness of heart.

Whereby the children of God do freely, willingly, genuinely, without fear, terror, bondage, and constraint go forth unto all holy obedience unto Christ.

Look with me at verse 3 and see how beautiful this king is, this one that we offer ourselves to.

And we see what else he has here.

He has eternal youthfulness in holy splendor from the womb of the dawn.

The dew of your youth belongs to you.

And you may even have a footnote on your Bible that says meaning unknown.

A lot of people can get lost here and just keep moving.

This is a Hebrew idiom that can be somewhat confusing for us, but let me see if I can paint a picture for you of what is being conveyed here.

Imagine the dawn when the day is new and it's bright, it's full of promise.

The dew is on the ground.

This morning was very much like this.

The day is young, it's fresh, it's strong, it's energetic, it's promising, it's unfading.

He's saying, This is true of the king.

Youthful, energetic, strong, unfading.

We did a little mini-series through the book of Ecclesiastes, where we were able to just measure a common theme throughout the book of heaviness, futility, nothingness, where everything that is strong and energetic and bright and holds so much potential wears away and gets heavy and old and tired and unreliable and fading, culminating in death.

This king is the exact opposite.

We're talking about now the many excellencies of this king.

All the heaviness is gone, and all we have now is lightness and bright excitement and strength.

This is what the saints love about King Jesus.

Far more even than the benefits that we receive from him.

It's right for us to love those benefits, but this is what we love, the beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Emphasizing this, Jonathan Edwards remarked, the first foundation of the true delight a saint has in God is his own perfection, God's own perfection.

And the first foundation of the delight he has in Christ is his own beauty.

He, Jesus, appears in himself, the chief among 10,000, and altogether lovely.

The way of salvation by Christ is the delightful way to the saint.

For the sweet and admirable manifestations of the divine perfections in it, the holy teachings of the gospel by which God is exalted and man abased.

Holiness is honored and promoted, and sin greatly disgraced and discouraged, and free and sovereign love manifested are glorious doctrines in his eyes, and sweet to his taste, prior to any conception of his interest in these things.

In other words, it's a very fancy way of saying we look at the Lord Jesus Christ for who he is, and we love him for who he is.

We're not even thinking about what he's done for us yet.

Forgiveness of sin, streets of gold, adoption as children.

We just look at him on the throne and we say, wow, he is greater than any king.

He's greater than any celebrity.

He's greater than any loved one we have.

And we just want to serve him for who he is.

We offer ourselves freely to this one.

Do you know Jesus Christ in this way?

You love him, not for what he's given you.

You love him first for who he is.

All these descriptions of God's people can just be summarized by two words faith and repentance.

God's people look up at Jesus, this risen, exalted King, and they see him for who he really is.

That's faith.

And then they turn from an allegiance to themselves and a loyalty to themselves, and they turn and they embrace seeing life from his perspective.

He becomes the one in the room that when something comes up, they turn and they look at him to see, well, what does he say?

Because whatever he says, that's what I believe.

And they want to serve him.

No longer serving themselves, but serving him.

That's repentance.

They don't do so perfectly.

But that allegiance, that loyalty deep down has shifted from self to the son.

From what does everybody around me think to what does he think?

And these descriptions here in Psalm 110 of the King, up until this point, can be summarized by one glorious word.

Lord.

Lord.

We cannot state the importance of this.

David looks at this one and he says, My Lord.

And this is the heart of what we do as Christians, as followers of Jesus Christ and as saints, with David.

We look at this one exalted king and we don't just say, Yes, he is Lord.

That's not Christianity.

The world will do that.

We'll see in a moment.

Kings will do that.

Those who hate him do that.

We see in Revelation that people who want rocks to fall on them do that.

They know he's Lord, but they hate him.

No, no.

What the Christian does as we look at this Lord, this exalted one, this glorious, beautiful King, and we say, Oh, he's my Lord.

He is my Lord.

I happily submit myself in every part of my life to him.

I gladly yield all decision-making power in my life to him.

This is why, by the way, we raise our hands when we pray and when we sing.

Yes, sometimes in celebration, like we might see people at a conference or a sporting event, but it's it's this yielding, it's this giving of ourselves to him.

When we raise our hands, we're offering ourselves to him and saying, I offer myself to you, a living king.

Offering, giving, yielding, happily, because we love him for who he is.

Third, Jesus is the priest king who saves us from our sin.

And we have now, brothers and sisters, reached the most emphatic part of this psalm.

How do we know that?

Because of the structure of this psalm.

The form is what is known as a chiasm, in which the beginning of a story or a poem matches the end, and the second part matches the second to last part, and so forth, until there's a central part that has no match.

Somebody recently got me some very nice candy sent from Hawaii, very gracious and generous.

And it was a piece of chocolate on the outside.

This kind of captures a chiasm.

It was, if you were to cut it in half, you would see chocolate on the outside, and then you would see toffee, a layer of toffee, and then you'd see a layer of pretzel.

And then on the very inside, the macadamia nut.

And all the bits of that candy were important and delicious, trust me.

But they all were supplementary to that central macadamia nut.

Well, in a similar way, we have now reached the central part of this psalm.

And every other part of the psalm, though so rich and so important, it's all serving and supplementing this central part.

Let's look at it together.

It's another declaration.

Verse 4.

The Lord has sworn an oath and will not take it back.

So this time, instead of an invitation, it's an irreversible oath.

And what is the oath?

You are a priest forever.

According to the pattern of Melchizedek.

Now, this one who is selected is a king.

But he's not only a king.

You see, he's a certain kind of king.

He is a priest king.

A lot of people get lost here, and this is where the iconic nature of Psalm 110 is so well seen, because in order to understand what's being discussed here, you have to have a little bit of background knowledge.

You have to get into the backstory of the Old Testament.

So there's priesthood, but there's contrasting priesthood here.

The essence of priesthood is mediation between God and people.

Intercession, a transfer of guilt from a guilty party to someone else, and access to God, as well as God's blessing being brought down and mediated to others.

And there's a contrast here between two kinds of priesthood.

One is the priesthood of the sons of Aaron, who were the Levites, or this is the Levitical priesthood.

There's a contrast here between the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament and the priesthood of an Old Testament figure named Melchizedek.

So in the Levitical priesthood, for example, in Leviticus 16, on the Day of Atonement, a priest would lay both of his hands on a goat, confessing the sins of himself and the people, and transferring their sins onto the goat, which would be sent away.

And another goat would be slaughtered, and its blood would be sprinkled all over the inside of the temple where God's presence would meet with his people.

That's what Levitical priesthood looked like.

And in Genesis 14, a priest named Melchizedek visits Abram with bread and wine after Abram's victory in battle.

Melchizedek is listed, unlike the Levites, the Levitical priesthood was passed down generation by generation, by descendants.

Unlike that, Melchizedek is not listed as having any ancestors or any descendants.

He stands as a sort of mediator between God most high and Abram, blessing God and blessing Abram, and being a mediator who promises God's blessing on Abram, specifically over Abram's enemies.

Abram's victories over his enemies.

There's no animals in Melchizedek's priesthood.

But there's something else.

The mediation between God and man is not through the Levitical law as it was with the Levitical priesthood.

It's through a person, Melchizedek.

And as we read earlier this morning, the book of Hebrews elaborates how Jesus is a priest like Melchizedek.

He offers a blood sacrifice, but it's not like the Levitical priests with bulls and blood from goats.

No, no.

Melchizedek came with bread and wine.

Jesus comes with the bread of his broken body and with the wine of his blood poured out.

Now, if you're new to this, or maybe you've been reading your Bible for a long time and you just deep down, you have always wondered, okay, what's up with all the blood?

Why the blood?

Okay, let me let me just explain blood atonement because it's at the center of this concept here.

We must understand blood atonement if we're gonna understand the significance of the king being a priest.

The wages of sin, the scriptures teach us, is death.

This means in response for sinning, we deserve death.

Death is the payment.

And blood is the proof of death.

So we're not talking about a little bit of blood.

We're not talking about a little prick of blood like someone makes when they get their blood sugar level tested.

We're not talking about that.

We're talking about a lot of blood.

We're talking about blood everywhere.

Imagine a grisly crime scene that a police officer walks into and he knows when he walks in and he sees the blood, or maybe it's a car crash.

He walks in, he sees this, and he knows death has occurred.

There cannot be this much blood without the death of the person from whom this blood came.

Someone died here.

The life of a creature is in the blood, and blood is the receipt of justice.

For what?

The scriptures teach for the wrath of God, against the sins of the world, against the sins of murder, and adultery and sexual immorality and theft, deceit, taking God's name in vain, idolatry, false worship, lust, covetousness, endless sins of the heart and body that defile us.

Sins of omission, things that we have not done that we should have done, that we never even thought to do.

We have all wandered away from the Lord like sheep, the scriptures teach.

And we have all gone our own way in life, choosing what we thought was best.

And though we deserve to stand before God and be told to depart from him into everlasting death and eternal punishment and hell, our God has graciously offered us another way.

He has punished Jesus Christ on the cross for the iniquity of us all.

Jesus is the substitute for us.

He's the punishment substitute for us, his people.

And after Jesus was dead for three days, God raised him from the dead and later raised him to the throne of God in supreme authority, where Jesus continues to serve as priest, not offering himself and his sacrifice again and again.

No, Hebrews teaches he did it once for all time, but he continually intercedes and points back to his finished work, saying, It's done, no longer dying, but forever interceding for his people, like Melchizedek, with no successor.

There is one word that captures and summarizes who Jesus is presented to be here in all his priestliness, and that word is Savior.

He saves us from our sin, from its guilt, from the wrath of God, from ourselves and walking in our own destruction and going our own way.

He is our savior.

This king humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

What king in the history of the world is like this king?

Offering himself to purchase his people?

I want you to see this morning that Psalm 110, these roles of savior and Lord are inseparable.

This king with all authority and power and adoration, the supreme king of kings, is the self-sacrificing priest offering his own blood.

Who can accuse one for whom this king shed his blood and says, mine.

No one.

No one.

When we look at Jesus and all his priestliness and his kingliness, his royal authority, we are so greatly comforted by the forgiveness of our sins.

We are so grateful.

We can flinch and faint as we see our own sins.

We see what we're capable of.

We don't want to think about it.

He doesn't flinch and faint.

He doesn't.

What does he do?

We see what he did.

He moves quickly to make atonement and purification for us.

He gladly offered himself, and he still stands now making intercession for us.

And lastly, point forward.

Jesus is the conquering king for whom we wait.

Look with me at verse 5.

And note that while the ruling at the right hand of Yahweh is happening now, starting in verse 5 and continuing through the end of the Psalm, the time spoken about is in the future for us.

And it is about the judgment of God.

It's big.

Verse 5: The Lord is at your right hand.

He will crush kings on the day of his anger.

Commentators connect this Psalm to Psalm 2, which talks about the Messiah's future judgment on kings and raging nations, subduing them.

This is a time that will come into the world that is referred to in the scriptures as the day of the Lord, or here it is referred to as the day of his anger.

The world will quickly change into this day of anger.

The day of mercy, which is now, will come to an end.

And the gates of mercy that are wide open, offering forgiveness and salvation, will close like the door on Noah's ark.

And the same merciful Jesus Christ, who healed the sick and raised the dead, and stopped for everyone that called out and cried out to him.

That same Jesus who poured out his blood for the nations will be the one whose face his enemies cannot bear to look at.

The one who will pour out his anger on those who have gone their own way, and even kings will not escape him.

There will be no appeal.

It will be broad judgment as well.

Verse 6, he will judge the nations, heaping up corpses, heaping up, piling up dead bodies.

Jim Hamilton notes that when the Hebrew term for leaders here in verse 6 is rendered head instead of being interpreted as a reference to chiefs, such as in the ESV, or leaders, such as in the CSB, the verse sounds like a statement that David's Lord will visit the judgment of God spoken of in Genesis 3 over the serpent and his seed.

The Davidic Messiah King, our Lord Jesus, will crush heads.

The head crusher will be the final global ruler, and the earth will be filled with the corpses and dead bodies of those who have been subjected to his very carefully, appropriately measured, righteous, royal judgment.

And it will be total.

Look with me at verse 7.

He will drink by from the brook by the road, and therefore he will lift up his head.

Now, some scholars interpret this part symbolically.

I don't believe it's symbolic, but whether it is symbolic or literal, one thing is clear.

This Davidic Messianic king, our Lord Jesus Christ, has gone from his throne in heaven down, and he is now on earth, being refreshed by the earth, once again, enjoying its delights as he once did with Adam, and his drinking from the brook in a way that signifies not only victory, but even the restoration of the earth to the way it should be.

For example, the the Kidron Brook on the east side of Jerusalem now is a place where sewage flows.

Imagine what all would need to take place for one going to Jerusalem to stop and take a drink out of that brook and lift his head.

Ah.

We're talking about the restoration of the earth to the way it should be.

He's gonna do his work, it's gonna be done.

He's gonna take a drink from a brook and he's gonna be satisfied.

The priest king who saves God's people from their sin is the one who saves them from their enemies in final victory.

Well, in light of Jesus being the Psalm 110 king, ruling now, and who will bring this royal judgment on all the earth?

The way that the flood of Noah's time covered all the earth.

The great question for us is where do you stand in relation to this king?

Are you his?

You're either one of his people who gladly offers yourself to him, or you are one that will be pierced and crushed through by him.

You are either one who shares in his rule and his reign, or you are one of the many corpses who will fill the earth.

Oh my friends, there are so many people who think that they are okay when they're not.

One role of the church is that when we baptize believers, they are expressing that, as one has said, they're going public with their declaration that they're followers of Jesus Christ.

But we also as a church are saying we have gotten to know them and we see genuine marks that they are true believers of Jesus Christ, following him not perfectly, but still characteristically nonetheless.

And when we receive one to the Lord's Supper, we are continuing to extend that acknowledgement to them.

And this is why at the Fields Church here we ask that if you have not taken baptism as one of the first steps of obedience to following Jesus Christ, we would ask you not to take the Lord's Supper.

And this is why when our church members persist in sin and living like they don't know Jesus Christ, that God offers to us church discipline as a gift, which culminates in a very difficult thing of excluding people from the Lord's Supper.

It's the church expressing only God knows the heart.

But based on what we're seeing persistently in your life, we are no longer confident that you are a believer.

Your stance then with the church is big in how you relate to this king.

Maybe you read this and you ask, I don't know this king, and I want to.

And how do I become one of God's people?

I want to be on the ark when the flood comes.

Do you want to be one of God's people?

Children, listen to me.

Do you want to be one of God's people?

I would love to talk to you.

Come see me.

But this is what I'll say.

I'll say, let's look at Psalm 110, where this one, this King, the Lord Jesus Christ, offers himself to you as your Lord and your Savior.

I might share with you what that means, even as I have these past few minutes, but I will look at you in the eye and I will say, Do you take the Lord Jesus Christ to be your Lord?

Do you receive him to be your Savior?

Not a Savior of His people, but your Savior.

Do you receive Him as covering your sin with His own blood?

Do you offer yourself to Him now in this way?

And I would say, if you do, you are a follower of Jesus Christ.

And come and join us at the Fields Church.

Come follow Jesus in baptism.

And then come and join us in the Lord's Supper.

And be among those who freely offer themselves to this King.

Well, inasmuch as this psalm is iconic in the New Testament, this should be the most iconic in our own lives, in our own thinking.

Inasmuch as this is a psalm in which we are being trained by God.

This was given to us to sing together to Him.

This should be iconic to us.

Psalm 110 should be central in how we relate to God and in one another.

It should be central in our lives and our thinking.

It should be one of the great themes of our lives and our thoughts day by day.

We know the King.

He loves us, He intercedes for me now.

This should form the backbone of our thoughts and our lives.

And time fails us to get into the many applications from this made in the New Testament and many more.

For example, when believers die, the scriptures teach, we go to be with the Lord Jesus Christ, where he is, and that when he returns, he will bring us back with him.

We have nothing to fear.

We have no sin to be intimidated by, no affliction to concern us, no hardship that could bring us to destruction.

What can compete with the living, reigning, mediating Lord Jesus Christ?

What has been your hope?

Has He been your hope?

Has knowing Him been the central part of your life?

Where is it in your life that you must shift your hope away from something else to the Lord Jesus Christ?

It is this glorious King that we have fellowship with daily, who we are united to by his spirit.

That we are with him in heavenly places, and he is with us everywhere we go through his spirit.

It is this one that we will not only have fellowship with one day, but we have fellowship with him now.

We enjoy his presence.

We offer ourselves to him now.

Even in a few moments when we take the Lord's Supper, as we look back, proclaiming the Lord's death and what he did for us, as we look forward to the great feast that the Lord's Supper is a mere taste and representation of.

As we look inward at our continual need of his grace, and as we look outward, not only to fellow brothers and sisters, but to this King that we are enjoying at the enthroned Jesus Christ.

We are enjoying our fellowship with him.

Let's pray.