This transcript was generated by whisper.ai. (upbeat music) I want to welcome you to day five of our look at Psalm 41 to 45, which means we're looking at Psalm 45 today. And the writer of Psalm 45 set out to write about the wedding of a king of Israel. But even as he started to write, he realized that there was an unusual and an unknown to him depth in his writing. Psalm 45. 1 is one of those rare cases when the psalmist talks about the process of writing the psalm and what was going on in his soul as he wrote it. Verse one says, "My heart is stirred by a noble theme "as I recite my verses for the king. "My tongue is the pen of a skillful writer. " Now, looking back, we can see what was happening. Looking back, we can see that he was writing prophetically. We're going to see that very clearly in the middle of this psalm. He was writing, as he wrote about a wedding, he was writing about Jesus as the bridegroom and the church as the bride. You remember that marriage is a picture of the relationship that Jesus has with his church. You can read about that in Ephesians chapter four. And maybe you remember that the relationship that Jesus has with his church will find its ultimate celebration at the end of time in the great wedding supper of the lamb. The lamb is Jesus. So this idea of the church being the bride and Jesus being the bridegroom, it's all through the scripture and it's here in Psalm 45. So let's look at the bridegroom and the bride and what we can learn from it today. First, the bridegroom. Let's look at the pictures that this psalm gives us and then what that means for your daily relationship with Jesus. This bridegroom, here's how the bridegroom is pictured in this psalm. First, your lips have been anointed with grace. Verse two, you are the most excellent of men and your lips have been anointed with grace since God has blessed you forever. So out of the speech of this bridegroom, there's this grace that is flowing. And second, you are clothed with splendor and majesty. Verse three, gird your sword upon your side, almighty one, clothe yourself with splendor and with majesty. So you just feel this greatness, this majesty, just in looking at the presence of this person. A third picture, you ride forth victoriously in behalf of truth. Verse four, in your majesty, ride forth victoriously in behalf of truth, humility, and righteousness. Let your right hand display awesome deeds. So you have this picture of a rider going forth, but there's also behind it something deeper here. These words, truth, humility, righteousness. That's where the power of this bridegroom is found. There's the picture of defeating the enemy. In verse five, let your sharp arrows pierce the hearts of the king's enemies. Let the nations fall beneath your feet. And then there's this picture. There's this picture of the throne, a throne that will last forever. Verse six, your throne, O God, will last forever and ever. A scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. Well, this is what tips the hand of this entire psalm. The throne is not now the throne of the king. It's your throne, O God. The king has become God. Well, Jesus is the king who is God. Now it's a throne that's going to last forever and ever. And David's throne obviously represented a kingdom that was going to last forever, but now here is God sitting on the throne, a throne that will last forever. The writer of Hebrews recognized that this verse was pointing to Jesus. Hebrews 1:8 says, but about the son, about Jesus, he says, your throne, O God, will last forever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. So now we know this is about the bridegroom. This is about Jesus. And when we look at these pictures of Jesus, the pictures just keep coming. It's the pictures of a bridegroom who loves righteousness and hates wickedness. In verse seven, you love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore, God your God will set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy. So it's this picture of God who's doing good in your life. It's this picture of the music of the strings that makes you glad. All your robes are fragrant in verse eight with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From palaces adorned with ivory, the music of the strings makes you glad. So my question is, what does this mean for us? I mean, it's a picture of glory. It's a picture of beauty. It's a picture of Jesus. What does it mean for you today in your relationship with Jesus Christ? The bridegroom, his lips are anointed with grace. It means that Jesus today will speak grace to you. Listen for his grace, the grace of his forgiveness, the grace of his patience, the grace of his gifts. In the New Testament, the word grace and the word gifts, it's the same word, charis in the Greek language. So you look for God's gifts in your lives. God's gifts are God's grace and God's grace is God's gift to us. Jesus today, if you'll listen, he will speak grace to you. The picture of being clothed with splendor and majesty, Jesus will show God's glory to you. In the midst of our sometimes mundane and other times crisis-filled lives, we need to see God's glory. God's glory that lifts us above the mundane and the boring in life and God's glory that reminds us in the midst of the crises of life that God is greater, that God is bigger. When you see these pictures of one who would ride victoriously, one who had arrows that would pierce the enemy, it's a picture of the truth that Jesus will fight for you. You're in a battle today? Jesus will fight for you and don't miss the weapons of this battle. Ride victoriously with truth, humility, and righteousness. When you look at Jesus, he is the personification of truth, humility, and righteousness. God and human flesh living out these truths, but he also can bring God's truth and humility and righteousness into your life as Jesus is fighting for you. There's this picture of the throne that lasts forever and it's a reminder that today Jesus will never fail you. Into eternity, he will not fail you. You might feel like he's failed you. You might wonder if he's failed you. He will never. He will never fail you. His throne, his place of control, lasts forever. And it may look like for a moment on this earth like he's not in control, but we're seeing in a second something that's going to change in eternity and for eternity. It's this picture again of someone who loves righteousness and hates wickedness. Jesus will do good for you. He is not out to do evil in your life. He is out to do good. Anointed with the oil of joy and the bridegroom who's anointed with the oil of joy, he wants to bring joy into your life. He wants to bring his joy into your life. That's what Jesus wants to do for you today in this Psalm. Now this Psalm also has some things to say to the bride, to the church, to us. It talks about three ways that we express our love for Jesus, the bridegroom, as the church, the bride. What do we do as the bride, as the church? Number one, we commit to him above all others. Verse 10, listen, O daughter, consider and give ear. Forget your people and your father's house. Even as a bride had to move out of her house into her new husband's house, had to forget her past and begin to build a new future with her husband, you and I, when we come to Jesus Christ, we forget the past, we forget our other commitments, and we commit to him above all others. We still have others in our lives, we still do other things in our lives, but he is our number one commitment. And if that's been waning in your life recently, this is a reminder today that that's who we are as the church. We commit to him above all others. When other secondary things begin to take primary importance in our lives, of course we begin to fall out of love with him. And of course we begin to struggle in our faith and in our soul. So again, refresh your commitment to him above all others right now. We also, secondly, honor him above all others. In verse 11, the king is enthralled by your beauty. So honor him, for he is your Lord. You honor him with your prayers, you honor him with your words, you honor him with your time, you honor him as you read his word and let it speak into your life, you honor him with your obedience, you honor him by loving God and loving your neighbor, you honor him by keeping his commandments, you honor him above all others. You think about the greatness of God and who he is, the greatness of Jesus and who he is. And you bring honor to his name. You lift his name in your heart. Do that throughout your day to day. That's what the bride does for the bridegroom. And then there's a third thing we do. Number three, we see that we are beautiful to him above all others. In verse 11, there's this phrase that the king is enthralled by your beauty. And then verses 13 and 14, all glorious is the princess within her chamber. Her gown is interwoven with gold and embroidered garments she has led to the king. There's this picture of beauty that the bridegroom sees in the bride. And I want you to know that Jesus, the bridegroom sees that beauty in his church, the bride. He has given his life for the church. He is giving himself to the church even now as he intercedes for us day after day after day. See to him the beauty that the church has. I know you may have been hurt by the church. I know right now you may see the ugliness of the church 'cause the church is filled with people like me and like you who make mistakes and do wrong things. But taken all together, the great beautiful thing that God is building through the centuries, Jesus sees the beauty of what he is doing in the church. He sees the eternity of what he's doing in the church. So do not leave what he sees as beautiful. Do not stop honoring what he sees as honored. We honor him by honoring his bride, by honoring his church. Paul talks about this. He talks about it with this very same picture. In 2 Corinthians 11, verse two, here's what Paul says. He says to the church, I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. So the picture here is that the wedding hasn't happened yet, that we're awaiting that time. The bride is going to be married to the lamb. We're going to celebrate together for all eternity. And now we're awaiting that time faithful to him, serving him. That's who we are. That's who we are as the church and as the bride. So in prayer today, I want to invite you to join me in recommitting to what it means to be part of the church. Jesus, we recommit our souls, our hearts to you. And we say to you once again, or maybe we say to you for the first time. Maybe it's for the first time in a long time. That as the church, we commit to you above all others. We don't want to live for secondary things. We want to live for that which is most important and let the secondary things fall into places they may. We commit to you above all others. And we say to you that we honor you above all others. We don't want to glorify ourselves or anything in this world. We glorify you, for you are our Lord. Forgive us for those times when we've honored other things and let other things become the directors of our lives, the Lord of our lives. We honor you in this moment. And we see in this moment that we as the church are beautiful to you above all others. That you love the church. That you gave yourself for the church. And we remind ourselves of the beauty of what you are doing in the church. We commit these commitments, Jesus, to the one who loves us the most. We want to love you back as your church, your body, your bride, your temple. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Join us next week. We're going to continue our study in God's word together and drive time devotions.