The Rule and Reign of Yeshua - Pastor Chase Mendoza
Psalm 72 prophetically points to Jesus as the coming righteous King who will establish an eternal kingdom of justice, defending the poor and needy, crushing oppressors, and bringing flourishing and blessing to all who place their faith in Him.
Transcript:
Would you guys join me in a moment of prayer as we welcome the Lord this morning? Heavenly Father, we wanna thank you for your tremendous blessing upon our lives. We thank you for the worship that we were able to sing this morning. We pray, Heavenly Father, that it would reach your throne place. And Lord, as we think of the many needs that are in this body, we lift those up to you as well.
And so Heavenly Father, as we enter into your text, I just pray that it would penetrate deep into our hearts, that it would transform us from the inside out, and that we would be renewed, and that we would look closer and more like the image of your Son, Jesus Christ. And we pray all these things in your holy and precious name and all people say? Amen. Amen. And so if you do have your Bibles, would you turn with me to the Book of Psalm, and we're gonna be looking at Psalm 42. So if you have your Bibles, please turn with me to the Book of Psalm, and we're gonna be in the book of Psalm 72.
And as we make our way there, the title for today's, in this message, is The Rule and the Reign of Yeshua. The Rule and Reign of Yeshua. And so before we enter into this text, I just wanna first thank everyone for having me here this morning. It's both a pleasure and a blessing. Anytime, I've made a commitment to the Lord that anytime the Lord provides an opportunity for me to share the Word anywhere, I'll take that opportunity. And so I just wanna thank you for this opportunity. And with that, I thought I would share a little bit about my story. It's been a, several years since I've been here visiting you guys and being in this community of fellowship as well. My wife isn't with me this morning, my best friend. She is at the church in which I pastor at, and, and so she got a free time away from me. I guess you can look at it like that. But for me, I, I, I didn't grow, anyone who grew up in this area, or at least in New England? Okay, so it's a good portion of you guys. I did not. I grew up in Washington State. That is about three thousand miles away from here. And you probably are asking how did I come from Washington State all the way over here.
There's a long story that goes along with it, but I was adopted into a big family. We have six sisters and two brothers, and so we have quite a bit of people, and each of us are from different parents. And so none of us are biologically related. So you can imagine the diversity of our family. Six sisters and two brothers.
And we did not grow up in a Christian home. And so who here are first-generation Christians? Maybe this is, so we have a couple around here. I am a first-generation Christian. Our family, we did not go to church. We did not talk about church. It was quite the opposite. It was a very spiritually dry home. It was in my mid-teen years where my family was invited, several of our people in our family was invited over to a Christian camp in Oregon. They called it Washington Family Ranch, but it was in Oregon State. And it was in that moment, that week, where I turned my life over to Jesus. The Gospel message was declared to me, and my life has not been the same since then.
From that early onset, it was, I knew I had been sensed into a calling of ministry. I just exactly was not sure what area and where the Lord was calling me into. But I always knew I was involved in the church and ministries and more. It was about a year after I gave my life to Christ, a friend invited me to gather, in a church service like this.
And it was after that moment, I had, it, I never stopped going and gathering with other believers. You know those weird people that give you hugs? You know, and say hi to you, invite you over to your home, and just fellowship with you. That was an experience that felt like home to me. And so after that moment, at 18, our parents had sort of decided they wanted to move, and so they did.
And anyone else that was over 18 had to move out. And so the church took me in, gave me a home to stay in, and eventually I moved. There was an invitation to say, "Hey, Chase, why don't you go to Massachusetts and go on to some further education?" So I'm like, "What am I gonna do in Massachusetts?" But sure enough, I was like, "I don't know. How am I gonna pay for it? How am I gonna get over there?" But the Lord provided all the steps and everything for me to move, and I graduated from a small college there, moved back. Eventually moved back, 'cause I wanted to continue my theological education. And when I moved back, I, I met my best friend, Kristen, my wife, who isn't here unfortunately. And we have three little ones, and another one on the way. And so we're extremely excited about that. We pastor a church in Charlton, Massachusetts, and Tom asked if I'd be willing to share the Word while he's away. And so that brings us to, that's my testimony, and this brings us to the Book of Psalms.
You guys are going through this over the summer, and I think that's a beautiful thing. It took me a little bit of a, a shift from the series that we were going through to dive into Psalms, but it is always, you can never not dive into Psalms enough. Amen. And so Psalms 42, I'm gonna provide a little bit of high overview of the Book of Psalms.
What, how the Psalms are sort of designed and more, just because that's, I think from a, I, the way I think is I have to have the big picture before I zoom in. And so for me, when you look at the Book of Psalms, you, Psalms are divided into five books. They each have their own section to them and their own point to them. There's debate if you're, if you follow some of that stuff on whether there is a design to it, and, and I think there is. And so when you look at Psalms, you, you have to, we read it in a sense that we, we see that David is, King David is one of the people that was a big author of them. And so he wrote a lot of it.
And we, what we read as we read and we meditate over the Psalms, we get this great picture of, we see David's deepest desire is to walk hand-to-hand with the Lord. And so out of that expression, when we read it, we get this walking back and forth with the Lord in it. And so David, from the outset gives us this great example of faith and following him.
And so the Psalms, as we think of it as divided into five sections, we get the book one. And book one is from chapters one through 41, which we read, and it opens up with this confrontation between the wicked and that of the righteousness, and up until the consummation. And so, which is kind of an interesting thing, and you read the first two books of the Psalms, and then you get the, the picture of what the whole book is all about.
We call it the pillar of, the poetic pillars of Psalm. The book, the collection of book two is from 42 to 72, which speaks to this omnisity between that of the two seats, I guess you would say, or the two seeds that we find on Earth between good, between God, and that of the enemy. And we then, we see that we as believers and the world is invited into this invitation with the Lord.
And then the third book of Psalms, which is between 73 and 89, we see that Israel expresses this deep desire and this hurt because surrounding them is this persecution with the nations. And then book four from 90 to 106, we, we see that the believers or the, God's people, they mature in their faith and they realize that the Lord reigns even with everything that's going on as them being displaced and more.
And then this ending section between book five, 107 to 180, where people will eventually experience this praise and blessing in those who put faith in him. And so when we look at Psalms, and it's written over a span of over 500 years, we, we, it brings us to an interesting section in the reason what I'm preaching through today is seventy-two.
Because the chapter seventy-two is in between a section of books. It's, there's a change there that happens. And so seventy-two we find is an author of a king named King Solomon. And Solomon speaks to sort of this future time that's going to happen in the future. And so knowing his reign, understanding who Solomon is, he was a king that came from a time of a lot of blessing.
So imagine a king that had wealth, had wisdom, had everything that he could ever possibly imagine, and we think that Psalm forty-two is coming to the end of Solomon's reign, and so he's writing this expression in prayer and this prophetic imagery of what's to come. And so that brings us to the reading of these for today.
So Psalm forty-two, verses one through eighteen can be divided, I would say, into three sections. The first sections is verses one through seven. And so let's, I'll read it before us, depending on your translation, but I'll read as, as I have it. And it starts off and it says that, "Give the king your justice, O God, may he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice! Let the mountain bear prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness! May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the children of the needy, and crush the oppressor!"
And so before we get further down into the text, I want to point out that it, just in these first three verse, verses, we hear this word righteousness. Solomon repeats this word three times in just three verses. He says, "Give us your king. Give your, give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness. May he judge your people with righteousness. Let the mountains, and, and the poor with justice and the hills in righteousness." And so from the outset, what we see and what we read is this word of righteousness.
He starts off with God. His prayer is that a king would come, and that this king that would come, that it would be one of righteousness, that he would have God's righteousness. And so righteousness is, a, a way of thinking of it is think of everything that is perfect and right, in order, in kind, and then living out in such a way that it is righteous.
And so Solomon is praying, and he's writing this poem, this prophetic poem of asking before the Lord, "Lord, let your righteous, let your justice be given to your royal son." Pleading to God, but it's more than just may he give him righteousness. It's more of, "King, your righteousness given to him." So he's pleading.
He's, he's declaring something unique. And so we, we see righteousness given to this king. And he speaks, and he continues on, and he says, "May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the children of the needy, and crush the oppressor! May they fear you when the sun endures, as long as the moon, throughout all generations."
And that's in verse five. And one of the interesting things as you read verse five is you, you get a picture of, he's not talking about the king that's to come right next to him, because he's speaking about a king that is throughout all generations. And so in the beginning, in the opening of his prayer, he speaks of the future, of a king that's going to come and what he's going to do.
And he's praying and he's petitioning that he will defend the cause of the poor, that he will deliver the children of the needy, and that he will crush the oppressor. And so this king that's to come would be in righteousness, and his reign would be one in which there would be prosperity to the people, in which this king will defend the children of the needy, those that are outcasts, those that are broken, those that are hurt, those that have been oppressed.
And that this kingdom that he will reign would be throughout all generations. Beautiful. That's his lament. That's his praise. And he continues on, and he says, "In the days, in his days may the righteousness flourish and peace abound, till the moon be no more." That's the first section we read in the Book of Psalm.
Psalm, the second section we read is from verses eight through 14, and it reads, "May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth! May desert tribes bow down before him, and the enemies lick the dust! For they have no pains until death. Their bodies are fat and sleek. There are not trouble in, trouble as others are."
They are not stricken for the rest of, oopsie, I jumped ahead here. Hold up. I can't read back there, so forgive me. "May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from river to the ends of the earth. May desert tribes bow down before him, and his enemies lick the dust! May the kings of Tarshish and the coastlands render him tribute; may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts! May the kings fall before him and all the nations serve him. For he delivers the needy when he calls, the poor and him who has no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy. The oppression and violence he redeems their life, and precious is the blood in his sight."
And so in section one, we get the picture of him pleading and his reign and his righteousness, of him coming, bringing prosperity. And then we shift into this next section where he is then given dominion from sea to sea, from river to the ends of the earth. This is not any ordinary king, is it, church? This is a king that is to last, and his prosperity would be forever.
That this king would dwell and have dominion not from here to there, but from the beginning to the end, from one end to the earth to another. Solomon is praying and seeing that there is a king coming down in the lineage in which he will then establish, in which he will reign, and that reign would be forever He then continues on in verses 15 through 17, and he says, "May he live; may gold from Sheba be given for, to him! May power be made to him continually, and blessings invoked for him all the day! May there be abundance grain in the land; on the tops of the mountains may it wave; may it, may its fruit be like Lebanon; and the people blossom in the cities like the grass of the field! May his name endure forever, his fame continue as long as the sun! And may people be blessed in him, all nations call him blessed!"
And so you see now this shift again. And so from the beginning in Psalm 42, Solomon has this prayer and sees that there's a king that would come from the Lord to give him that of justice, of righteousness, of perfectness, and then asks him, "May he defend." But then makes a shift in the second section. Doesn't say may, but he says that he will deliver the needy who calls, the poor to him who has no helper.
From oppression and violence he redeems their life. Long may he live. And so the theme, what we see in this shift is what's to come when this king comes. And as we know, Jesus is who he's talking about. Jesus is that king. Jesus is the one that came. But the establishment of Jesus' reign is still under development because we have a lot of brokenness in our world.
We all sense it. We all want justice for those that have been hurt, don't we? We, it doesn't take long to look out into our world and just see the brokenness and the hurt and the needs of those around us. It doesn't take long to enter into a work environment, into a school environment, to look at the political climate of our world, and see that it is broken, that it is frail, that they aren't answering the needs that are set before us because that's not the way that it's designed.
But there is a king that delivers and judges with righteousness. This is the prayer and the vision that Solomon has, that there is a king to come, and when he comes, he will establish this kingdom, and that this kingdom will be ruled with righteousness. Because when righteousness is enacted, when it's lived out, then prosperity, blessing the needy, all of it start to live in fruition.
It starts to flourish and more. So this speaks to what Jesus is doing and what he's going to do in the future. Amen. Because when Jesus returns, and when he does return, those who have been on the outcasts, those that are needy, those that have been oppressed, those that persecute others, those that push others to the side, they will see a righteous king, and he will enact his justice upon the nations.
And those who have cried out, those who have turned to him, those that cling onto him, those who place their faith in this king, those who hold tight with this king, those who love this king, those who walk into this king will live a life that is described in these verses. There will be abundance. We will be praising.
We will have joy. There will be fruit from Lebanon. There will be flourishing trees. The kingdom will be established, and that kingdom will last forever and ever and ever, and the dominion will never cease. Amen. This, church, is what we get to look forward to in the time that we're in. While we groan in pain and hurt, while we feel the afflictions of our day, we also sense the promise that's given to us in scripture that this king is coming.
Amen. He will come, and he will deliver us and redeem us and set everything right in order. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we just wanna thank you for your Word. We wanna thank you for the truth that it brings. We thank you for the blessings of your King, and we're grateful for those that stood before us of faith like Solomon and David and the authors of the Bible that point us to you.
And so Heavenly Father, we just ask that you would be with us, keep us on the narrow road, help us focus continually upon your Son, Jesus. And so Heavenly Father, we pray all these things in your holy and precious name, and God's people say? Amen.
Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon I offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Road in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from the Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us in person or virtually this Sunday as we continue our series Summer in the Psalms. It's our joy to welcome you into our community
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)