This simple meal of bread and wine which we eat and drink is a death knell to Death. It is a war trumpet declaring a decisive victory over Satan. It is a flag being raised to assert the dominion of King Jesus. He bled and died for this world & so it is His.

You are feasting on eschatological glory. This is no empty tradition. This is majesty. This is triumph. This is our victory, even our faith. All this being the case, it would be utter folly to simply partake in ignorance or unbelief. This is why Paul attaches warnings to his instructions about partaking of this meal unworthily.
To feast here in unbelief is to transform this blessing into a grievous curse. As we eat this we collectively proclaim the glad tidings of Christ’s total and sovereign reign over all things. Cherishing beloved sins, hiding your unbelief, scorning the Word of conviction which preaching reveals, are all ways in which you can go through the motions of this feast & yet eat unworthily.
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You are living in a world in which the Anointed Son of God is the Shepherd of the nations. That is the reality, it cannot be reversed by UN decrees, or even by your own sinful failures. Christ who won You, shall bring you at last to glory. He who He justified, He will also sanctify and glorify.

Introduction
The first two Psalms form a sort of introduction to the Psalter. Where Psalm 1 introduces us to the contrast between the blessed life of walking with God and the miserable life of walking with the scoffers and evildoers, Psalm 2 presents an eschatological vision. The first Psalm tells us how to live in the here and now, and the second Psalm goes on to lay before us the glorious future under the global reign of the Messiah.
The Text
1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, [saying], 3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. 4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. 5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. 6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. 7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou [art] my Son; this day have I begotten thee. 8 Ask of me, and I shall give [thee] the heathen [for] thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth [for] thy possession. 9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. 10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. 11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish [from] the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed [are] all they that put their trust in him.Psalm 2
Summary of the Text
This Psalm pits mankind’s word against the Word of God’s Messiah. This song opens with the question which often confronts God’s people (v1). Why do the goyim rage? Why do the people have brains full of daydreams? Earth’s kings & rulers have called a war-council to determine what to do about Yahweh & the one He has Anointed (v2); they issue the results of their council: “let us overthrow the Almighty (v3).”
How does God respond to this challenge? He laughs (v4). Then He replies with the Word of His wrath (v5). What judgement shall these rebels bring forth upon themselves? How will He vex them? Despite their raging, despite their protests, despite their vanity, His anointed King shall reign from Zion (v6).
The Messiah then speaks. He reveals to the nations God’s decree. This Christ is Yahweh’s begotten Son (v7; Cf. 2 Sam. 7:14). This Sonship comes with the right to ask of the Most High for an inheritance of nations (v8, Cf. 1 Kg. 3:5, Is. 7:10-16); the Anointed Son might shepherd the nations firmly to either obedience or damnation (v9). He has every right to crush the nations into powder. But He holds out wisdom to the kings of the nations (v10). Obey His imperatives. Serve Yahweh with joyful reverence (v11). Kiss His Son in humble love, and so His lawful wrath might be removed (v12). This done, all the covenant blessings of Eden & Sinai held out in Psalm 1 are offered to these nations by trusting in the Christ of Yahweh.
An Apostolic Favorite
At the Apostolic Psalm-sings this second Psalm was likely a crowd favorite. It is one of the most cited Psalms in the NT. After Peter and John’s examination before the Chief Priests, after healing the lame man, the early Christians lift up a prayer with one accord. This congregational prayer quotes this Psalm and applies it to Herod, Pilate, and the threatening of the chief priests and elders (Cf. Acts 4:24-31). The wicked opposition to Christ had been foretold by David’s Psalm, and this emboldens the early church to stand courageous even in the face of the threatenings of those same rulers. A sort of second Pentecost takes place at the offering of this prayer.
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Our sinful attitude throughout history has been to think that God is disposable, ignorable, or irrelevant. Yet the Scriptures and nature itself compels us to come face to face with the awesome truth that He is God the creator of heaven & earth, of all things visible & invisible. This demands our worship. This demands our praise. This demands our faith & obedience.

The affliction of modern man is what should be ridiculed as “ingrown autonomy”. Man views himself as totally independent. He is authorized by whatever impulse stimulates him at the moment to act accordingly. It is his subjective truth that dictates his moral framework, and his moral framework is guided by that great humanist trinity: “my, myself, and I.”
In contrast, the early Christian creeds begin with a statement which offends man’s self-centeredness by confessing that God the Father is the maker of heaven and earth. As one writer notes, “the creed is simultaneously descriptive and prescriptive. This means that if God is the creator and we are His creatures we owe Him all the honor, obedience, and most importantly worship that is due to Him as the Almighty Creator.”
When Christians recite the creeds, it isn’t a robotic recitation of syllogisms. Rather, our confession of faith in who God is as revealed by scripture, obliges us at the outset to bend our knee to worship. As the 95th Psalm reminds us, “It is He who made us, and not we ourselves.”
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The Resurrection isn’t a fable about liberation from the prison of this material world. Rather, the Resurrection is the beginning of a total renovation of this world. The Old Management has been tossed out on his ear, and New Management is running this place: the Risen Christ.

From the opening salvo of Genesis’ creation account, to the adventurous romps of the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Kings; from the scrupulous chronologies to the precise measurements for the tabernacle & temple; from the glorious conquests to the disastrous exiles, the Scripture is clear. It isn’t just a collection of moralistic assertions. It isn’t a book of food for thought for philosophers or theologians.
It’s a history. It’s our history. It’s a book about the world we live in, how God made it, and more to the point, how He redeemed it. Of course, it’s not only a history. Nevertheless, too often Christians are lured into thinking that the Scriptures are written to bring us to some higher plane.
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The world tempts you with insane words about “trying harder”, “doing better”, “trusting yourself”. Confession, however, is the act of coming into the Light of the sanity of Christ’s kingdom of peace. All sin is insanity, but confession is walking in the truth, walking in reality, walking in the Kingdom of Christ. The Gospel speaks a clear word of sanity: your sins are forgiven through Christ.

The Christian faith is not a privately held religious belief. As if we could fold up the greatest news which has ever occurred upon this planet, stuff it in our coat pocket & go whistling along as if nothing has happened. Christ is the great fork in the road of history.
You don’t get to ignore Him, or go around Him, or avoid Him. He is the immovable fact which must be reckoned with. He came to mankind, and you must either fling wide the gates, or bar them in stubborn unbelief. Christ entered Jerusalem, the City of David, to assert His right to earth’s throne. And then He won it by dying the death which you deserved.
Thus, the question that is perpetually before each of us is this: what have I done about Jesus? You either cling to Him in faith, fleeing from all your sin and unbelief in so doing. Or else you have determined to live in the house of mirrors which is your unbelieving pride.
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With certainty we know that the Christ who shed His blood for the remission of our sins, now sits enthroned above the circle of the earth; thrones, angels and powers all made subject unto His majesty. He must reign until all enemies are subdued, then He shall come to judge the living & the dead, and offer up the Kingdom to His Father, that Christ may be all in all. While the timing is uncertain, we rest assured that this is how it will all play out. 

Imagine the disciples at the Last Supper. All their lives, as good sons of Abraham, they’d heard the prophecies, partaken of the feasts, prayed the Psalms, and hoped for the Messiah to come. Here He was, at last. He’d come. He sat in their midst, telling them that His body would be broken like the bread He passed to them, His blood would be poured out like the wine in the cup.
God’s people had cried for deliverance. Deliverance from the wicked sons of Cain. Deliverance from Pharaohs, giant, Canaanite Kings, Philistine champions, demon-gods, Assyrian, Babylonian, Grecian, and Roman empires. “Avenge us, oh Lord,” they had prayed. And God had done so. Repeatedly.
But now, in the carpenter from Nazareth, this Deliverance had a face.
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All too often, we go about as if the Gospel wasn’t efficacious, as if we still dwelt in Old Testament darkness, as if we were still slaves to sin. But the Lord promises to us true and lasting forgiveness for all our sin, past, present, and future; if we confess.

The Gospel we proclaim here isn’t a Gospel meant for the back of the junk drawer. We don’t proclaim the remission of some sins, if they qualify. This isn’t some divine lottery where only one in a million have hope of hitting the jackpot. Nor is it a web of bureaucratic red tape, requiring a team of lawyers to sort through in order to find the loophole to avoid tax penalties.
This Gospel, which the church is tasked to believe & proclaim, is a Gospel for the whole world. It is a Gospel not of defeat. It is not Good News but only if you squint. Rather, Christ died for the sins of His people. You are clean. Your death for sin has been died. Christ has arisen, to eternal life, and by faith you share in that life. Christ is at the Father’s right hand, thrones & angels are made subject unto Him, and You are in Him. The God of peace, we are told, shall soon crush Satan under your feet.
As we prepare to confess our sin, we ought not to do so as whipped puppies. Yes, we’ve sinned against our Lord, and we should grieve. But we should come boldly, even audaciously. Where else can you find forgiveness for your sins, but in the One who took your sin by the throat, dragged it into the grave, and emerged alive without your sin.

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If you believe that Jesus is the Mighty Savior, who overthrew the devil’s war machines (3:8), then you are born of God, and the God-born are swept up into the conquering train of Christ the Victorious. But this victory is obtained by faith. Not by our own striving, for as Luther put it, “our striving would be losing.” Rather, the Right Man is on our side. This is how the saint should approach their individual battle with indwelling sin, and how they should view the end of the world.

1 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; and whoever loves Him that begat also loves him that is begotten of Him. 2 In this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments and His commandments are not grievous. 4 For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory which overcomes the world: our faith. 5 Who is he that overcomes the world? He that believes that Jesus is the son of God. 1 John 5:1-5
One way of thinking about this epistle is that it is a continuation of Jesus’ debate with the Pharisees in John 8. The ultimate question is always, “Who is your father?” The Pharisees insisted that their paternity could be traced by to Abraham. While Jesus rebuked them for rejecting Him as their Messiah, and that this rejection proved that the devil was their father. You might even call this the spiritual paternity test: what do you believe about Jesus? This first section of 1 John 5 goes over this same territory.
Those who believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the promised deliverer of fallen man, are born of God. This salvation, of course, brings forth in us love for the God who first loved us (4:19), and lavished His love upon us (3:1). We are His children, we bear His likeness, and all who bear His likeness will likewise be beloved (5:1). He who believe that Jesus is the Christ, is God-born.
John then answers the question, “Well, how do I love the brethren?” You love God, and keep His commandments (5:2). The New Covenant, as described in Ezekiel’s prophecy, also notes that this new birth, this new life, this new heart will impart to us the ability to keep God’s Law (Eze. 36:25-27). Once more, this isn’t a new commandment (2:7). Rather, this is new life in the old commandment. The husk has broken open, and the tree of life has sprouted in the world.
Loving God means obeying His Word (5:3). And so that we don’t sigh like a teenage boy asked to clean his room, John reminds us that these commands aren’t heavy.
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You cannot stand firm on toothpick stilts of self-determination, or self-righteousness. The only solid ground is that God, in Christ, has forgiven all your sins and given you His Spirit in order that you might walk in all righteousness. Paul exhorts the Corinthian church this way, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong (1Co 16:13).” This steadfast courage arises from those who know and believe that they have been buried with Christ, and raised into the life of resurrection which Christ secured for them, and which the Spirit assures them of. 

If you hadn’t noticed, the world is a bit topsy-turvey at the moment. As you all enter adulthood, you are faced with hard times. Congrats. You can either mope about it, complaining about previous generations idiocy. Or you can say, “I need a lion or bear thrown in to make it more interesting (Cf. Pro. 23:16).”
This is a time for courage. But courage isn’t a pill you take. It isn’t a class at a Christian Liberal Arts college. Courage isn’t found in poasting edgy memes. Courage is the steadfast stance of faith. God is your God. Believe it. Then live it.
Uprooting Discouragement
But we must first ask, “Where does discouragement come from?” There are a few ways in which staunchness can turn into stench. First, discouragement can arise from unconfessed sin. The cure, of course, is to confess your sin. To God & to those you’ve sinned against. Then sin no more. In the battle against darkness, harboring evil or disobedience in your own heart is doing the Enemy’s dirty work for him. Think of the Lord’s warning in Leviticus 26:14-17 “But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.”
Secondly, discouragement can arise from saying yes to going along with sinners. In other words, you may not be doing anything sinful per se (or so you argue with yourself), but you keep finding yourself keeping company with knuckleheads & idiots. Solomon’s instruction is the cure if this describes you: “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not (Pro 1:10).” Learn to say “No.” “No” to your own heart, and “no” to the enticements of evildoers.
A third source of discouragement comes from external trials. This one is trickier. It may be that you look around you and think that you didn’t ask for any of this. You were minding your  own business. You didn’t ask to be cast in a dystopian novel about tyrannical mad scientists & politicians wanting to run experiments on you, while you wear VR headsets in a pod, being fed plant-based meat goo, and sedated with AI kink-porn generated specifically for you.
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A very simple strategy for beginning to deal with anxiety is simply to take a page and begin to list things for which to be grateful, followed by ways in which God has provided and protected in times past. The simple exercise of “looking back” at God’s prior faithfulness emboldens us to face todays trials and troubles.

Paul commands the Philippian believers to “Be careful (anxious) for nothing (Phi 4:6).” Jesus taught, “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on (Mat 6:25).” In both instances the word for careful/thought is merimnaō. Very simply it means one’s cares or worries. Biblically, anxiety is caring about something to the point of distraction. Anxiety and fear tend to go together. When you are anxious over something it can very easily lead to a whole host of largely irrational fears. When we begin to carry a worry to the point where it consumes almost our entire attention we have grown anxious.
Anxiety can cripple a person to the point of almost entire inaction. Fear can breed more fears, which breeds fear of fears. Anxiety can lead to severe health issues, and fear can lead to severe relational issues. The stress of anxiety can cause heart attacks, high blood pressure, whereas fear can result in being unable to function normally in our relationships. Headaches, sleeplessness, and difficulty concentrating on one’s responsibilities are often the result of merimnaō taking over someone’s life.
We all have responsibilities and “weights” to carry.
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