Please turn with me in the Word of God to Psalm 93. Psalm 93, our scripture for tonight's sermon. Psalm 93, beginning at verse 1. Let us hear God's own Word. The Lord reigns. He is robed in majesty. The Lord is robed in majesty and is armed with strength. The world is firmly established. It cannot be moved. Your throne was established long ago. You are from eternity. The seas have lifted up, O Lord. The seas have lifted up their voice. The seas have lifted up their pounding waves. Mightier than the thunder of the great waters. Mightier than the breakers of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty. Your statutes stand firm. Holiness adorns your house for endless days, O Lord. So far the reading of God's word. A number of years ago, I was at a conference and a lady asked me to preach someday on Psalm 93. And as sometimes happens in such situations, I said, sure. And I have to confess that when she asked me to preach on Psalm 93, nothing immediately came to mind. I didn't think immediately what was in Psalm 93, but I suspected that I would find a psalm of some complexity or some grandeur, some mystery, perhaps, that she wanted explicated, and I thought that would be a nice challenge for a preacher. And then I actually turned to Psalm 93, and I'll confess I was slightly disappointed. I thought, well, this psalm is so simple and so straightforward, it hardly needs a preacher. You could just read it and tell what it means. And I was perplexed. I was perplexed for some time over why this woman had been so drawn to this little psalm. Now, she lived in Miami. It may have had something to do with the roaring of waters. Maybe she had lived through a hurricane. But over the years since I received that request, I've come back again and again to this psalm thinking there must be something here that I had missed on a first reading. And I think I've concluded there is a lot that I missed. This is, at first reading, a very simple little psalm saying that the Lord is king. That's a simple little thought, isn't it? Straightforward kind of observation, the kind of thing many of us have heard all our lives that is sort of self-evident, right? The Lord is king. Check that off the list. Move on. We know that. And yet, you know, at the very heart of living the Christian life is really coming to take seriously that the Lord is king. And I thought it would be particularly appropriate on this Ascension Day to reflect not on just the general fact that the Lord is king, but that Jesus is king. Because that's what the Ascension is really all about. It's a celebration of the enthronement of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, of course, Jesus has been king from all eternity. There was never a time he wasn't king and then he became king. But the Ascension marks in the incarnated life of our Lord that moment in which he completes the glory of his resurrection and triumph over death in His enthronement in heaven and calls us to see Him, to acknowledge Him, to recognize Him as the King, not just of the church, but of the whole world. And this psalm, in the way that it celebrates that kingship of God come in the flesh, our Lord Jesus, is a celebration that should encourage us, that should build up our faith, that should draw us closer to the Savior. Because you see, this little psalm, this simple little psalm, is part of the fourth book of the Psalter. That part of the Psalter that is wrestling with the consequences of the collapse of the kingdom of Judah. The apparent failure of David's son to sit upon his throne. Book 3 of the Psalter, Psalms 73 through 89, are psalms that talk about the crisis of an invasion that casts down the king, that captures the holy city that desecrates the holy temple and that leads many in Israel away to exile and that leads to a crisis of faith because as is asked in the last psalm of that third book how long oh Lord will you hide yourself forever what's happening God has promised to preserve the Davidic kingship God has promised to preserve the holy city God has promised to dwell in his holy temple. And all those promises seem to fail. And so in book four, we have psalm after psalm that tries to answer for the people of God. How are we to understand God when his promises seem to fail? And that's not just a crisis of Israel, is it? It's not just a crisis of an ancient people far away. It's a crisis that we as Christians can experience as well. Because although we know, we confess, we believe that Jesus is the ascended, living, enthroned king, there are those moments in life when his kingship seems far away. When we may be tempted to think, Jesus, if he's king, has forgotten us. Or at least we can't see at all what sense his rule makes at times in our lives. And one of the privileges of having been in this congregation for 30 years is that I can look up and out and see hardly a family who hasn't intensely experienced that struggle? Why is God doing in the life of my family? Why is he doing what he's doing? Is he really king? Is he really sovereign? And we know we have evangelical brothers and sisters who try to deal with this problem by saying, well, Jesus is really sympathetic, but we just have to recognize he doesn't always get his way. And we as Reformed Christians rightly say that's not only not biblical, but it's very cold comfort. This psalm is the way to comfort our souls in the midst of the crisis of an apparently absent king. And so as we think of the ascended Jesus, as we want our faith strengthened in his kingship. Let's walk through this psalm and the psalmist who must have been a preacher really makes three points in this psalm. And the first point is that our faith in the kingship of our Lord Jesus will be strengthened as we meditate on the truth that he is majestic. He is majestic. The Lord reigns he is robed in majesty the lord is robed he has put on strength as his belt this psalm this poem is painting right at the opening a a picture that says to us contemplate the splendor the beauty the majesty of your god here's a here's a picture It's not really a vision. It's a picture of faith. Here's a picture of who your God is. Robed in all the splendor of his office as king. And girt in power as Lord. His robes, you see, his robes of office show his majesty. Now, we don't have much experience of that as Americans. If our president appeared in some robes of office, cynical Americans would all be inclined to giggle or be offended. Who does he think he is? But thankfully, we have British cousins across the Atlantic who can remind us of what majesty is really all about. Now, I don't mean the recent royal wedding so much. Some of you may have seen a little bit of that on the television. In fact, it's kind of hard to avoid it on television. And Queen Elizabeth showed up looking very nice in a rather bright yellow. Apparently, she has said to her family that she thinks it's an obligation always to be noticeable in a crowd if you're queen. But although she had a very nice yellow hat on, she wasn't really majestic, was she? In order to see her majestic, you have to watch the opening of Parliament where the Queen appears with attendants and with a long train behind her and a long gown wearing her crown of state, jewels glittering, the royal scepter born before her. And there suddenly is a picture of majesty. This is a person of consequence. The jewels and the furs and the satin and the attendants all point to majesty, to glory. And that's what the psalmist wants to portray before us in terms of our God. And the New Testament tells us that's true of our Lord Jesus. Revelation 1.5 says the ruler of the kings on earth. Later in Revelation, we're twice told he's king of kings and lord of lords. Not that he will be, but that he is. And in that opening chapter, he's described as clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash about his chest. This is his majesty. This is who he is. This is how we have to recognize him. He is glorious. He is glorious, and when we wonder what he is doing, why he is doing it, we mustn't ever lose sight of this vision of his majesty, of his place, of his power. And you know, it's as if the rhythm of the psalm itself wants to make this point. It's not a rhythm that our translations capture very well. But the opening of verse 1 is with staccato syllables that make this point to draw our attention to the majesty of God. And so my rather weak translation that captures these syllables would go like this. The Lord, He rules, clothed in splendor. The Lord is clothed with strength, He's girt. Those almost drumbeat syllables call our attention. The psalm slows down after that. The phrases get longer after that. But here is this opening, drawing our attention to the majesty of God. We could also translate the first line, the Lord is king. The psalmist wants to remind us of that. Because so often we can forget. We can wonder. We can doubt. And the word the psalmist gives us is a word that must be an object of our faith. We don't always see it. We don't always understand it. But here is the declaration. Our Jesus, our Savior, is King, is Ruler, is Majestic. and then the psalmist goes on secondly to say not only is he majestic but he is mighty they might say well aren't those sort of the same things no not really if you see the opening of parliament the queen proceeds into the house of lords in all of her splendor and she is seated in the throne at the front of the house of lords and the lords are gloriously appareled sitting around her And then in a dramatic moment, the commons, the people really have the power in England. The House of Commons is summons to come and stand before the queen as she is seated. And the prime minister appears as if he were just sort of a suppliant before the queen. There she is in her majesty, but she doesn't really have any might. She reads a speech from the throne, as it's called, but it's been written by the prime minister. She has no control over the words. She has no control over the policy. She's majestic, but she's not mighty. And what this psalm is saying, that our God, our God who comes to us in Jesus Christ, is not only majestic, but he is mighty. Our God has a throne. Verse 2, your throne is established from of old, from everlasting. It's the character of our God and of His throne. It's established. It's firm. As the last part of verse 1 makes clear, it's every bit as firm as the world seems to be firm and established. We look around the world and we look at various objects in this created world and we contemplate them, we think they look so firm, they look so stable, they look so unshakable. Evening News had a report on Yosemite and had pictures from that beautiful valley and the waterfalls apparently are larger this year than they've been in decades and decades. And you look at those great hills, Half Dome and El Capitan and you say, Boy, there's the very image of solidity, the very image of firmness, of what's established. And the psalmist is appealing to those kinds of images to say that's how firm God's throne is. In fact, he's even firmer than that, more solid than that, more ancient than that. We have a mighty God. We have a mighty God. And then the psalmist shifts and says, as firm as the throne of God is, illustrated by the firmness of the world in which we live, we also recognize that a lot in this world seems chaotic and ever-changing and in flux, like the sea. Verse 3, the floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice, the floods lift up their roaring. It's a picture of the pounding of the sea against the shore. Here's a picture of that great restless being. Ancient Israel didn't like the sea. The sea seemed threatening and dangerous. Most of them probably couldn't swim. Most of them probably couldn't sail. And when they looked at the sea, they saw primarily danger. They saw great power, sort of out of control. And so for them, the sea became a perfect image of what seems wrong with this world. All sorts of things pounding, pounding, pounding, roaring in its sound. And that's the way we can sometimes feel about our existence. It just seems a roaring repetition, impersonal. The sea doesn't care whether you stand on the seashore or not. The sea doesn't care whether it carries you out to sea or not. The sea doesn't care whether you drown or whether you float. It's an image of what seems uncontrollable. and the psalmist says when you contemplate all that power remember this as mighty as thundering as the waves of the sea are the Lord is far mightier above it all the Lord is far mightier above it all in all that seems impersonal and changing and uncertain in this world there is a mighty God who stands above it all and that's what Ascension Day celebrates that that mighty God who stands above it all is the friend of sinners is the head of his church is in heaven for our good as the catechism says Romans 8 also says that that's the message of scripture that this Jesus is our friend and is our savior but never forget But he is also Lord. He is also King. He is also in control of all things. He is mighty. He is high and lifted up. That's what Isaiah saw, wasn't it, in his vision in the temple, as we find it in Isaiah chapter 6. He saw the Lord high and lifted up. It's interesting that word high in Hebrew can also mean proud. And part of the reason for the vision given to Isaiah was that in contemplating the true highness of the Lord, every human pretension to pride must be flattened before it. We long to lift ourselves up, but it's a vain exercise because the Lord alone is lifted up. And this psalm wants us to remember that our Jesus is Lord. Now he's majestic and he's mighty. And finally, as we see in verse 5, he is also mindful of his people. His majesty and his might don't remove him from us. but he remains intimately connected to us, and that's what his word promises. And so we have what's the longest phrase in terms of syllables in the psalm, your decrees are very trustworthy. I think that's the longest phrase so that we'll pause over it, so we'll meditate on it, so we'll reflect on it, So, we'll let it run around in our minds. Your decrees, your statutes, your word are very trustworthy. If God has made you a promise, he will keep it. If God has promised that David's son will ever sit on David's throne, even though that throne seemed empty, God will keep that promise. If God has promised to provide a Savior so that you can have assurance that you are delivered from your sins, God will keep that promise. If God has promised, even though we die, yet shall we live. God will keep that promise. That's what this psalm is reminding us. That's what this psalm wants us to meditate on. Your decrees are very trustworthy. It's interesting that this psalm, directed to Israel in its loss of its king, apparently, is really a meditation on David's great song of thanks when the ark came up to Jerusalem as we find it recorded in 1 Chronicles 16. And there, let me read verses 27 through 32. Don't turn there, just listen. 1 Chronicles 16, 27 through 32 and see how much the themes of this prayer of David are taken up again in our psalm. David sang, Splendor and majesty are before him. Strength and joy are in his place. Ascribe to the Lord, O clans of the peoples. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name. Bring an offering and come before him. Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. Tremble before him all the earth. Yes, the earth is established. It shall never be moved. Let the heavens be glad. Let the earth rejoice. Let them say among the nations, the Lord reigns. Let the sea roar and all that fills it. Let the field exult and everything in it. Why did David rejoice in that way? Because God was present amongst his people in the ark as it was brought up to Jerusalem. And this psalm, you see, is saying to a people who see the ark gone, The temple destroyed. The kingship failed. This psalm is saying God is still present with his people. And this psalm is appropriate for Ascension Day because our Lord Jesus, in his divinity and by the power of his Holy Spirit, is still present with us. Our catechism teaches us he is not removed from us. He is not absent from us. He is with us. He's in our lives. He's in our hearts. And he's in this world to accomplish his purpose, to gather his elect and bring glory to his name. Your decrees are very trustworthy. Holiness befits, or better, adorns your house. Israel had been sent into exile because of its sins. But God would not be frustrated in his purpose to have a holy people. And Jesus came that we might be a holy people. Jesus bore all of our sins on the cross so that he might present us before his father as a bride without spot or blemish. holy before the Lord. And Jesus sent his spirit into our hearts so that more and more we might be sanctified, made holy. It's interesting how often the New Testament letters begin speaking to the saints of the church. that how we see ourselves, that how we understand ourselves. I had begun the service instead of saying, beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, if I'd said, saintly congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ. How would you have felt about that? Would you have been a little uncomfortable? We're maybe better at seeing our sinfulness than seeing our saintliness. Knowing some of you, I can understand that. We are sinners, but we are also saints in Christ, not just in the perfection of his atoning work, but also in the real change that the Holy Spirit is working in our hearts. Holiness adorns his house forever. God will have his people, and God will save his people, and God will sanctify his people. That's what this psalm promises us. That's what this psalm encourages us to pursue. If we have a God so majestic, if we have a God so mighty, if we have a God so mindful, Surely he will draw us to want to walk in his holy ways. So that his purpose will be displayed in this world through us. You remember when Jesus is introduced to us in Matthew's gospel. We are told that he was the great light as Isaiah had prophesied. Shining, first of all, in northern Israel. And that great light came and then said, you are the light of the world. Because holiness must adorn his house. The God who is majestic and mighty and mindful says to us in our ascended Lord, you are my people, my beloved ones. Now live before me in the blessings that I have showered upon you, in the blessings that the ascended Lord, the gifts the ascended Lord has given to his people. And so in the tough times of life, remember that our Lord Jesus is majestic and he's mighty. And he's mindful. He remembers us and cares for us. May we all be filled with that ascension, hope, and faith. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, we are thankful that we have a king. That we have a king who rules the whole world, but with special love and attention and care, rules his church. And we pray, O Lord, that when times are difficult and when our faith is tried, that we might return again and again to the encouragement of your word. To lift up our eyes, to lift up our hearts, and to see again, enthroned in majesty, our own Lord Jesus, who has loved us with an everlasting love, who has promised that he will never let us go, who has showered us with gifts and blessings, and is at work in us to make us a holy people. O Lord, fill us with great faith, because you are a great God. Hear us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.