The Coronation of the Son | Psalm 2
Brian Hedges | December 1, 2024
Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to the book of Psalms. We’ve been in the book of Psalms for the last six weeks in a series on spiritual practices. We’re turning a corner today, but we’re going to stay in Psalms, but with a different focus, for the next four weeks. There’s a new series beginning today called “Songs of the Son: Advent in the Psalms,” and we’re going to be looking at four different psalms that really focus on the Son of God. These are some of the royal psalms that point us to the Son of God, the Son of David who is ultimately the Son of God and who is the King of Israel.
We’re going to be today in the second psalm, Psalm 2, if you want to turn there in your Bibles.
While you’re turning there, let me show you a picture of an event that took place just a bit over a year ago, on May 6, 2023. This was the coronation of King Charles III. Most of us have known him for most of our lives as Prince Charles, but as you know, Queen Elizabeth II died in September of 2022, and the Prince of Wales then acceded to the throne. This was the coronation ceremony that took place last year.
This was, for many people, a once-in-a-lifetime event. Only once a generation or so will someone see British royalty actually crowned in this way. Now, of course, as Americans, our whole country was born in rebellion against a king. We don’t get quite as excited about a coronation ceremony as maybe our British friends do. But this coronation scene reminds us of something that has been true for most cultures, for most of the world, and that was their hope in a king and their desire to see the good and the just reign of a king.
Unfortunately, rather than a good and just reign from most kings, what we’ve seen are tyrants in the history of the world. We’ve seen empires—anything but goodness and justice.
But that longing for a king was also part of the longing of the Old Testament people of God, as they looked for this future king to come. In fact, they looked for someone who would be like David, someone who would be the Son of David, who would come to the throne and would reign over the people of God.
The second psalm is really all about this kingdom. It’s all about this Son, the Son of David and the Son of God, who would sit on the throne and would reign over God’s people.
Now, this series is called “Songs of the Son,” and we are all accustomed, of course, to thinking of Jesus as the Son of God. But as D.A. Carson, a New Testament scholar, has noted, this title “Son of God” is a christological title that is often overlooked, sometimes misunderstood, and currently disputed. Many people would deny that Jesus is the Son of God in any kind of unique or special sense. Even those of us who would say, “Yes, we believe Jesus is the Son of God,” and we have some vague sense that this means that Jesus somehow is equal with God—after all, he said, “I and my Father are one.” It’s true that Jesus as the Son of God shares the very nature of God. This is a part of his deity and a part of his divinity. Yet I think we probably don’t think of this title “Son of God” in its relationship to the kingship themes, the kingdom themes in Scripture. But that’s really right at the heart of what this title “Son of God” denoted for the people of God in the Old Testament.
You see that especially in Psalm 2, which gives us something of a coronation scene for this divine Son.
I want to read this Psalm to us. It’s just twelve verses, so we’ll read it first of all and then break it down into three sections. Psalm 2, beginning in verse 1. Notice that it actually begins with a scene of rebellion against the king. Psalm 2 says,
“Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
‘Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.’
“He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
‘As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.’
“I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, ‘You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.’
“Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”
This is God’s word.
Maybe this is not what you would expect for the beginning of Advent. This is a serious psalm. It’s a psalm that’s full of warning. It’s a psalm that calls us to worship, that calls us to submission to the Son, who is the King. But as we’re going to see, this is a psalm that is used often in the New Testament, connecting it to the Lord Jesus Christ and his first coming, his first advent. It’s a psalm that reminds us of who the Son is as the King of the world.
I want you to notice three things as we work through this psalm.
1. The Rebellion against the Son
2. The Reign of the Son
3. Our Response to the Son
1. The Rebellion against the Son
We see that in these first five verses. Notice here that in the first couple of verses you have these various groups that are coming together in rebellion: the nations, the peoples, the kings, and the rulers of the world. They are coming, it says, to plot. They’re plotting something, right? They are raging. “Why do the nations rage and the people plot in vain?”
Incidentally, that word “plot” is exactly the same word that’s used in Psalm 1 to speak of meditating, meditating on the law of the Lord day and night. But here are people who are meditating on something else. They are meditating, they are plotting rebellion against the Lord. They’re taking counsel together.
But notice, verse 2, this is “against the Lord and against his anointed.” Who is the anointed? The anointed would have been the anointed king. There were three figures in the Old Testament that would be anointed for an office: the priest, the prophet, and the king. In this psalm, very clearly, the anointed one is this king.
Notice what they are saying in verse 3. They’re taking counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” In other words, at the very heart of their rebellion is their desire to throw off the authority of God. They don’t want to be bound to God. They don’t want to be bound to this King in any way whatsoever.
We’ve seen this throughout history. You see it in Old Testament history as the kings of the earth continually are seen as people who oppose God and oppose the people of God. You might think of Pharaoh and the people of Israel in Egypt. Or you may think of Nebuchadnezzar and Israel in exile. You get to the New Testament and you think about Herod, the king of Israel who seeks to stomp out this Christ child, this King of Israel who is being born according to prophecy. Or you think about another Herod and Pilate and the religious and political leaders of the day who conspired together to put to death Jesus the Messiah. Or then think about the history of the Christian church and the Roman emperors who persecuted Christians, throwing them to the lions, burning them as torches, and so on.
Throughout the history of the world, what we have seen is that the rulers of the world, by and large, have opposed God, they’ve opposed the kingdom of God, and they’ve opposed the church of God. Right at the heart of this rebellion is the desire of human beings and of human kingdoms to be independent from God and to live in rebellion against the authority of God.
Of course, personally it also applies to us, because all of us in our lives, at least at some point, have rebelled against God. That’s the very heart of sin. The heart of sin is to rebel against God and to live life on our own terms. We don’t want God to impose his rule on our lives.
Let me give you an illustration of this. I just recently re-read C.S. Lewis’s spiritual autobiography, called Surprised by Joy. It’s really the story of how he came to faith in Jesus Christ. He describes what was going on in his heart before he was a Christian. Of course, he had been raised nominally Anglican, and by the time he was a teenager he had become an atheist. It was a very slow process before he finally came to a genuine faith in Christ in his late twenties. But he describes what was really at the heart of his resistance to God and his unbelief. Listen to what he says.
“But of course, what mattered most of all was my deep-seated hatred of authority, my monstrous individualism, my lawlessness. No word in my vocabulary expressed deeper hatred than the word ‘interference.’ But Christianity placed at the center what then seemed to me a transcendental interferer. [That’s how he’s referring to God.] If its picture were true, then no sort of treaty with reality could ever be possible. There was no region, even in the innermost depth of soul, nay, there least of all, which one could surround with a barbed wire fence and guard with a notice, ‘No Admittance.’ That was what I wanted: some area, however small, of which I could say to all other beings, ‘This is my business and mine only.’”
That is a profound description of the heart that is in rebellion against God, and it’s a description of every one of our hearts until subdued by God’s grace to bring us into submission to Jesus Christ. This is the heart of sin. We want to say, “This is mine. No interference.” We especially don’t want God to interfere in our lives.
Well, that’s what you see in this psalm in the rebellion of the nations against God. But notice not only the heart of the rebellion, notice here the futility of that rebellion. Verse 1 says, “Why do the nations rage and the people plot in vain…?” That means this is a futile effort.
Then notice how God responds in Psalm 2:4-5. “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury.”
Those are almost startling words, but they remind us that God is enthroned in heaven, that God’s reign is secure, uncontested, and established; that God is the sovereign one who reigns over all things; and he laughs and he scoffs at these kings of the earth that set themselves against him.
You know what that’s telling us? It’s telling us that God is not threatened at all by the rulers of this world who oppose his reign. In the battle of the gods, the true God is not threatened. He rebukes them in his anger, he terrifies them in his wrath. This shows us that the wrath of God is very closely connected to the authority of God. God’s wrath is his response to those who rebel against his authority.
While this is a terror to the wicked, this is a comfort to the church—the sovereignty of God.
You see this in one of the key places in the New Testament where this psalm, Psalm 2, is quoted. I want you to see this passage. It’s in Acts 4. This is after Jesus has risen from the dead, this is after Jesus has ascended to the heaven and the Spirit has been sent to the Church, poured out on the Church, and now the early Church is going around preaching, they’re speaking in the name of Jesus, and they are beginning to face persecution and opposition.
There’s a prayer meeting that takes place in Acts 4, and what they do is they pray Psalm 2. Notice what they say. This is Acts 4:24-28.
“And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, ‘Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit,
‘“Why did the Gentiles rage,
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers were gathered together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed”—
for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.’”
They’re quoting Psalm 2, and they’re seeing God’s sovereign reign behind it all, and this is what gives them courage to then go on and preach the word with boldness. They were confident because of the sovereignty of God in his reign. The rebellion and the persecution of the kings and kingdoms of the world could not stop them.
I love those words of Charles Wesley:
“His kingdom cannot fail;
He rules o’er earth and heav’n;
The keys of death and hell
Are to our Jesus giv’n.
Lift up your heart,
Lift up your voice;
Rejoice, again,
I say rejoice!”
His kingdom cannot fail. The rebellion of kings and kingdoms and men, the rebellion of our own hearts do not in any way thwart the sovereignty of our God. Instead, the sovereignty of God calls us to respond to his reign with submissive hearts. We’ve seen the rebellion against the Son.
2. The Reign of the Son
Now notice, secondly, the reign of the Son. You see this in Psalm 2:6-9, as the Lord now is responding. Verse 5 ends with God saying something, and then verses 6-9 give us the words of God.
I think in this little speech of God about the reign of his Son we see three things about the reign or the kingdom of Christ. We see his coronation, then we see his inheritance, and then we see his triumph.
(1) Look, first of all, at the coronation in verses 6-7. It says,
“‘As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.’
“I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, ‘You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.’”
Now, this is a coronation scene. In fact, that word “set” is a word especially associated with leaders and their installment in office, according to Old Testament commentator Derek Kidner. And of course, the immediate context is the throne of David and the line of David. You remember that God had made a special promise to David, a covenant with David. It’s recorded in 2 Samuel 7, where God told David that he was going to establish one of his sons on the throne, and he would establish his line, his dynasty, so that one of his sons would reign over the people of God forever. That’s the context in its immediate context.
But of course, it’s looking much further ahead. It’s looking to that ultimate Son of David, this one who would come and who would sit on that throne, the one who would be the Messiah, who would be the true Son of God and the true King of Israel.
We see this when we see how this passage, Psalm 2:6-7, is quoted in the New Testament. It’s quoted a number of times. One of the most obvious ones is the baptism of Jesus, which is something like a coronation of Jesus. When Jesus is baptized and the Spirit of God descends on him from heaven and the Father says, “This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased,” it is an allusion to Psalm 2.
Here are a couple of other places that are even more clear. Acts 13:32-33: here these verses are quoted in reference to the resurrection of Jesus. Paul is speaking, and he says,
“And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm,
“‘You are my Son,
today I have begotten you.’”
So, Paul seems to see Psalm 2 fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ. It’s not that in the resurrection of Christ Jesus became the Son of God. He was already the Son of God. The idea here is his installment as the divine King. So “Son of God” here is functioning as a title for the King. “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.” “I have set my king on his holy hill.” It’s the idea of the installation of Jesus in a public way through the resurrection, his installation, his coronation as the Son of God.
Then you have one other passage that also speaks to the authority and the kingship of Christ. Here the reference is more to the superiority of Jesus as the divine Son. It’s in Hebrews 1:3-5. Again, he’s quoting here from Psalm 2. Speaking of Jesus, the Christ, it says,
“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
“For to which of the angels did God ever say,
“‘You are my Son,
today I have begotten you’?”
There it is again. It’s a very clear quotation from Psalm 2, but here it’s speaking of the superiority, the supremacy of Jesus to all the angels. Why? Because this is the divine Son of God. This is the one who is the very radiance of the glory of God and the exact representation of the nature of God; the divine Son who is installed and enthroned as the true King. This is the coronation of the Son in his reign.
(2) Then notice in verse 8 his inheritance. Verse 8 says, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession.”
What does the Son inherit? Everything! He inherits the nations, he inherits the ends of the earth, because this is the King who will be the King of kings, who will be the Lord of lords, the one who will reign over all.
I can’t read those words, “I will make the ends of the earth your possession,” without thinking of Acts 1:8, where Jesus himself gives a commission to his disciples. He says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” It’s part of the call on the church, in the power of the Spirit, to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Why? Why do we have the missionary mandate? Why do we send missionaries, support missionaries? Why do we care whether people of another culture, another language, another part of the world worship Jesus? Because he’s the King, because he’s the true King, and because this is his inheritance, the worship of the kings of the earth, the people of every kindred, tongue, tribe, and nation. The Son’s inheritance is the ends of the earth.
(3) Notice also his triumph in verse 9. It says, “You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Again, these are severe words, but it’s speaking of the triumph of the Son over the rebellion of the kings of the earth. It says he will break them with a rod of iron.
Again, it’s a passage that’s used in the New Testament in reference to the second advent of Christ, who comes as King and subdues the nations. It’s actually quoted three times in the book of Revelation: Revelation 2, 12, and chapter 19. Let me read the one reference in chapter 19. This is Revelation 19:11-16. John is writing, and he says,
“Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.”
This is a reminder to us that Jesus Christ, the Son, reigns. He has been crowned as the true King, his inheritance is all the world and everything that belongs in it, and he will triumph over every rebellious power.
This should give us comfort, especially when we see opposition to Christ and his kingdom in the kings and the kingdoms of the world. Brothers and sisters, let me just say that this is also a reminder to us, in the midst of all of the political turmoil in our world, it is a reminder to us that we are citizens of another kingdom. We are citizens of a better kingdom. We are citizens of the kingdom of God.
I relate and resonate with these words of Charles Spurgeon. I just read these yesterday, words of Charles Spurgeon, spoken over a century ago. This would have been 160 years ago. Spurgeon, speaking in another nation, another century, and another context, said,
“I cannot say that I delight in political Christians. I fear that party strife is a serious trial to believers, and I cannot reconcile our heavenly citizenship with the schemes of the campaigning and the riot at the polling booth. You must follow your own judgment here, but for my part, I am a foreigner even in England, and as such I mean to act. We are simply passing through the earth and should bless it in our transit but never yoke ourselves to its affairs. Christians’ politics concern their own country. They do not care much about any other. As men, they love liberty. They are not willing to lose it, even in a lower sense. But spiritually, their politics are spiritual, and as citizens they look to the interests of that divine republic to which they belong.”
That’s a good word for us, brothers and sisters; to remember that we belong to another kingdom. Yes, we care about freedom as human beings and as citizens of our nation, but our true citizenship is a citizenship in heaven. It is the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ, and our hopes are to be set on him, not on anyone else. Let’s not let politics ever become a dividing point in the church.
3. Our Response to the Son
We’ve seen the rebellion against the Son. We’ve seen the reign of the Son. Now, finally, our response to the Son in verses 10-12. We could summarize this response with two basic commands.
(1) First of all, give homage to the Son. Notice here the verbs.
“Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.”
This is a call to submission. It’s a warning to not persist in rebellion against the Son, the Lord’s anointed, the true King. So we are called to be wise, to be warned, to serve the Lord with fear, rejoice with trembling, and to kiss the Son.
The kiss here is not a romantic kiss. This is the kiss of homage. It’s the kiss of a subject who’s kissing the hand of the king. It’s the one who’s kneeling before the King and is paying homage to the true King.
Note here, once again, the seriousness and the urgency of the language and the warning here. It is a call to serve the Lord, but to serve with fear. It’s a call to celebrate—that’s what it means to rejoice—but to rejoice with trembling. Right? So there’s triviality here. It means there should be no triviality in our worship, in our approach to God. We should take God very seriously. God takes himself seriously; we should take God seriously.
I think perhaps even more important in a season like this than other seasons—I love Christmas, and these lights are beautiful, by the way. I meant to say that earlier. I love the Christmas season; there are many things to love. But it’s easy for our emotions to kind of devolve into sentimentality at Christmas and for us to lose the wonder and the majesty of who Christ the King is. It’s not about the lights, it’s not about the gifts, it’s not about the music and all of that, as great as it is and as fun as it is. Christmas is a reminder to us that God, the divine interferer, has come in the person of his Son to establish his reign in our hearts. There is an urgency to this warning, and it balances out for us a picture of who God is.
Listen to Derek Kidner from his wonderful commentary on Psalms. He says,
“This fiery picture is needed alongside that of the one who is slow to anger, just as the laughter of verse 4 balances the tears of, for example, Isaiah 16:9 or 63:9. [These are passages that talk about God’s tears of compassion for his people.] That is, God’s patience is not placidity any more than his fierce anger is loss of control, his laughter cruelty, or his pity sentimentality.”
This is a God who is not only the babe in the manger; he is also the King coming on a white charger, with a sword in hand and a rod of iron, to rule the nations and to seize his inheritance. We need that balance. We need to remember who Christ is. We want Christ, the babe in the manger, but we want the full-orbed Christ. We want Christ in all of his glory, in all of his majesty. We want the Christ who is crowned as the King, the one who reigns and has power and who has authority to reign. It’s a call to us to give homage to the Son, to submit our lives to him.
Maybe just one question to ask yourself this morning, each one of us in our own hearts, is this: Have you submitted yourself to King Jesus? Have you bent the knee? Have you confessed with your tongue that Jesus Christ is Lord? Have you submitted to his authority? Have you recognized that here is not just a man, not just a prophet; this is God in mortal flesh? This is the King of the world, and he’s come to reign. Have you submitted yourselves to him?
(2) Now, it may be that you read all this language about wrath and anger and the kingship and the authority and the sovereignty of God and it strikes a note of fear in your heart because you know that in your heart of hearts you’ve rebelled against this King. What do you do? If you’ve rebelled against the King, what do you do? You not only pay homage to the Son, you also take refuge in the Son. That’s how this psalm ends. Verse 12:
“Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”
“Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” What does it mean to take refuge in something? To take refuge is to hide from danger. It’s to take shelter, maybe to take shelter in a storm. Do you ever find yourself faced with a hurricane? What do you do? Take refuge in your basement or in a cellar. To take refuge in the Son is to go to the Son as our place of safety.
Here’s a very interesting thing about the book of Psalms. There’s an order to the book of Psalms, and we’ve just spent several weeks looking at these spiritual practices from the Psalms, inaugurating that with Psalm 1, which begins with a blessing, a beatitude. “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, who does not stand in the place of sinners, who does not sit in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” It’s one of the beatitudes of the psalms.
But here’s another beatitude: “Blessed are those who take refuge in him.” As you know about the book of Psalms, you could say that one of the key themes in the book of Psalms is taking refuge in God.
Next time you read Psalms, notice this, every time it uses the word “refuge.” Something like 45 times, the book of Psalms either calls us to take refuge in God or expresses the heart of taking refuge in God or calls God our refuge. Here are a couple of examples.
Psalm 57:1: “Be merciful to me, O God; be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge. In the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by.”
Psalm 118:8-9: “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in men; it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.”
Or Psalm 34:22: “The Lord redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.”
You know what that is? That’s the gospel in psalms. That was the gospel expressed in psalms. It’s expressed in this way: “Blessed are those who take refuge in him.”
What do you do if you have found rebellion in your heart against the Son, against the authority of God? You know that you’ve sinned against this divine, majestic King who’s going to come someday to judge the world. What do you do? You flee—not from him; you flee to him and take refuge in him, because this very one who someday will come to judge the world has already come one time. He came the first time not to judge but to be judged in our place. He came and he took that judgment upon himself.
So this psalm is calling to take refuge in Christ for salvation, just as it calls us to learn to take refuge in him through the storms of life. Have you done that? Have you taken refuge in Christ for the salvation of your soul? This is how you get rescued from the wrath of God, taking refuge in the one who already bore that wrath in our place. Are you learning to take refuge in him through the storms of life? Not taking refuge in something else, not seeking refuge in entertainment or comfort or in narcotics or alcohol or anything else? The things we tend to go to for comfort—not in that stuff; take refuge in Christ. Trust in Christ. You’re leaning on Christ; you’re finding Christ is your source of security, help, comfort, and hope.
Let me end with these words of Charles Wesley, which we’ll actually sing together in a few minutes.
“Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll,
While the tempest still is high;
Hide me, O my Savior, hide,
Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide,
O receive my soul at last!
Other refuge have I none;
Hangs my helpless soul on thee;
Leave, ah! leave me not alone,
Still support and comfort me.
All my trust on thee is stayed,
All my help from thee I bring;
Cover my defenseless head
With the shadow of thy wing.”
No other refuge but Christ. Blessed are those who take refuge.
Let’s pray together.
Gracious, merciful God, we thank you that you are the sovereign King and that you have installed your Son, King Jesus, as the King over this world, as the King who reigns over the church, as the King to whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been given. We thank you that Jesus has inaugurated that kingdom in his incarnation, his death and resurrection from the dead, that he’s now ascended to your right hand in glory and someday will come again to consummate that kingdom, to defeat all the enemies of God and all the enemies of the church once and for all, to subdue all that is evil and wicked, to bring every human being, every man and woman, every ruler, every government into full submission, and that someday Jesus will reign. Father, this is our hope in the Advent season—hope in your Son.
Lord, this morning we once again take refuge in him. We confess ourselves to be sinners and rebels against your sovereign authority, and Lord, we repent of that. We seek your forgiveness, we seek your pardon. We take refuge in Christ. And Lord, we confess today together that Jesus Christ is Lord. Would you now fill our hearts with joy as we worship? May we obey the injunction of this passage to serve the Lord with fear and to rejoice with trembling. May our joy be a serious joy. There’s nothing trivial about this. But may it be real joy nonetheless, a deep and abiding confidence in Jesus Christ as both our King and as our Savior.
As we come to the Lord’s table this morning, would you let the table before us be a means of grace as it proclaims to us the death of Christ until he comes? Lord, help us come to receive these elements with faith in our hearts, faith in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen for us? So draw near to us, we pray, in these moments, in Jesus’ name, amen.