What Should We Do As The Bride Of Christ? (Psalm 45:9-17)
GIST: Listen diligently, love wholeheartedly, live experiencing extravagant grace, and leave a legacy.
This morning, we’re going to continue our discussion of Psalm 45. When we looked at it two weeks ago, we saw this love song celebrates a royal marriage ceremony that just doesn’t fit with any earthly couple. The king is just more than any man could ever be. Combine that not only with how this psalm has been interpreted throughout time, but also with how the New Testament quotes it in Hebrews as referring to Jesus, and we see that we have something really special here. This is a poetic description of Christ and the Church.
The first half showed us Jesus, and our gist was: When we see Jesus for who He is—glorious, powerful, purposeful, eternally good—we’ll be in the right place to love Him as our king who we so desperately need.
Today, we’re going to look at the second half of the psalm where we’ll really see what it looks like to be the Bride of King Jesus. Again, I know for many of us, especially the men in the room, thinking of ourselves in those terms can be awkward. However, though we’re talking in terms of intimacy, this isn’t the same as our notions of romance. We are meant to experience a relationship with Jesus that is closer than even the best of marriages. Look at how it’s described in this passage:
"9 …daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor; at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir. 10 Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear: forget your people and your father's house, 11 and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your lord, bow to him. 12 The people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts, the richest of the people. 13 All glorious is the princess in her chamber, with robes interwoven with gold. 14 In many-colored robes she is led to the king, with her virgin companions following behind her. 15 With joy and gladness they are led along as they enter the palace of the king. 16 In place of your fathers shall be your sons; you will make them princes in all the earth. 17 I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations; therefore nations will praise you forever and ever."
For our gist, I started with an “l-thing” this week and just kind of stuck with it ☺️. I say that ahead of time because I am fully acknowledging that the wording of the third point is trying too hard ☺️. Nonetheless, as we live as the Bride of Jesus, we should: Listen diligently, love wholeheartedly, live experiencing extravagant grace, and leave a legacy. Let’s break that down.
I. Listen Diligently
“…daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor; at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir. Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear:”
Where we’re picking up here is the transition from describing the king to describing His bride. In His splendor, He is surrounded by honored royalty. However, as we’ll see even more as we move through this passage, the beauty of those surrounding Him, is a direct result of being valued by Him and transformed into His image.
Now, as those surrounding Him are zeroed in on and we’re given a direct description of the queen, or bride, we’re given a directive: pay attention. This is only a small portion of the whole psalm, but I think its worth at least pointing out. In fact, in his commentary on the Psalms, Charles Spurgeon said: “Ever is this the great duty of the church.” Something I have re-learned from Melissa this summer is the importance of listening to what God is telling you. For eight weeks, we’ve had the blessing of getting into Terre Du Lac and trying to show to love of Jesus. I know this opportunity is due largely to the fact that God laid this heavily on Melissa’s heart, and she listened.
Guys, there will be so many voices competing for your attention. Believe me, I know. Even as I study my Bible and prepare sermons for Sunday, I’m bombarded by the millions of other things I could be listening to, or watching, or doing…etc. Please, let’s pray together for a focus on and desire for hearing Him.
Listen diligently. Also→
II. Love Wholeheartedly
This next passage is one of those that can seem a little harsh when taken out of context, but it’s also one we can be tempted to water down because what it’s teaching is hard. Look at where the psalm goes next: “forget your people and your father’s house, and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your Lord, bow to him.”
There are two major directives here, as well. The first one is in line with contraversial passages that seem to tell us to hate our families. However, the Bible doesn’t teach us to actually hate our families, and that’s not what is meant by “forget your people and your father’s house”. I like to think of this as→
Love in Extremes. We know the Bible tells us to love people. We’re called even to love our enemies and the people around us we don’t know well or particularly like. However, the love we have for the people of this world, strong as that should be, must pale in comparison with the love we have for God. When we say He’s our number one, the race isn’t supposed to be close. Therefore, our love for God should be such that our love for the rest the world seems like abandonment in comparison.
Likewise, to love God means to hate sin. We leave what is broken and destructive to pursue the one who brings life! That’s why we’re called to bow down to Him. Here is another place where we know this isn’t just an earthly marriage. Melissa might respect me, but she definitely doesn’t bow down to me, nor should she! I don’t deserve that. God does. He is in control. We leave behind our sin, and we follow wholeheartedly after our soverign God! Then, we→
III. Live Experiencing Extravagant Grace
Again, I know that one seems like a stretch to keep the l-thing going. It was ☺️, but the sentiment is true. Look at the bigger section of this half of the psalm. “The people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts, the richest of the people. All glorious is the princess in her chamber, with robes interwoven with gold. In many-colored robes she is led to the king, with her virgin companions following behind her. With joy and gladness they are led along as they enter the palace of the king.”
There is a lot of imagery here and no real directives, so it can be easy to get lost in the pictures, but what is this telling us about the bride of Jesus? I think there are a few things here.
First, we’re favored & provided for. Now, I am not for a second going to preach a prosperity message that says if you just follow after God, you’ll be rich, and your life will be easy. That’s not true. That’s not in Scripture, and it’s not how we see God working around us. However, what we do see again and again and again is God equipping us for whatever He calls us. If you know me at all, you know I’m not a money person. That’s probably great since I’m a teacher and preacher and probably won’t ever have much money to worry about. One area in particular that is a major struggle for me is asking people for their money. I would literally make the worst salesman because I’d just be giving stuff away for free all the time. However, as your pastor, something I feel strongly about is helping us fight against the stereotype that churches are just trying to get people’s money. We’re called to God and share the life-changing love of Jesus. We’re not called to go and get money.
Now, why do I bring that up? Because I’ve seen God work miracles in this church over the past five years. Come to a business meeting. It’s incredible to me. Everything in the world is ridiculously expensive right now, and we’re spending more money on outreach than we have in the sixteen years I’ve been blessed to be part of this congregation, but God is providing. I had someone ask me at one of our Community Wednesdays how we were making money off the events, and he was blown away when I told him we weren’t making a dime, but in fact we were spending money every week to make these happen. Telling him that, opened up a door to share the love of Jesus, and it was awesome. Guys, we have spent thousands of dollars to step out in faith and tell people about Jesus, and when you come to a business meeting, it looks like nothing in those accounts has changed. How is that possible? Because what God calls us to, He equips us for.
Just this week, due to a miscommunication, it looked like we weren’t going to be able to have our service at the lake next Sunday we’ve been advertising for months, but God is good and faithful, and He called us to the door, and He made sure that we could walk through it.
Another aspect of these verses is the descriptions of how pretty the bride looks. It also makes reference to her coming with virgin companions, meaning she too is pure. What is this a picture of? Does that mean the church is only made up a perfect people? Not at all. It means the church is adorned in His beauty and covered in His righteousness & purity.
We are made clean by the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, we can live joyous lives heading toward heaven. See how this section ends. They are led with joy and gladness to the palace of the king. This should define our lives. We are being led to our ultimate destination: Heaven, the full presence of God. In the meantime, we’re enjoying the journey!
Listen, love, be loved, and→
IV. Leave a Legacy
The metaphors get mixed a bit here at the end of the psalm, and the last verse actually comes back to speak of the king, but the message is consistent with what the whole song has been moving toward. “In place of your fathers shall be your sons; you will make them princes in all the earth. I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations; therefore nations will praise you forever and ever.”
Let me make two quick observations, then we’ll hit the takeaways. First, we should have a→
Difference-Making Witness. Fathers being replaced by prince-sons, is a picture of the legacy of faith being passed down from generation to generation. We just spent a week with my side of the family. For the first time in five years, our whole clan was together (my parents and my brothers’ families). It’s incredible to see the legacy of my parents faithful witness. Their not perfect people, and we’re not perfect kids, but we all love Jesus, and we’ve all devoted our lives to being ministers because we want other people to see Him too. That’s what the bride is supposed to look like: a bunch of broken people who really want people to see the glorious king!
The only reason we can have a legacy like this, however, is because of our→
Difference-Making King. The psalm ends where it began: the glory of the king who will be remembered and praised forever!
TAKEAWAYS
Listen diligently.
Love wholeheartedly.
Leave a legacy.
And remember you’re cherished by the King of Kings… because you are.
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