Providence Church

In Israel, kings and priests were never the same person, but Psalm 110 says the Messiah is both. The king who sits on the throne is also the priest who brings you into his presence.

We may genuinely want to obey God, but wanting to obey and actually doing it are two different things. Psalm 40 shows us where to look when our obedience falls short.

We live in a turbulent, noisy, intimidating world, with people and nations clamoring for power and position. Sometimes we wonder if the world is going to be okay. But Psalm 2 gives us confidence that God has the whole world in his hands. His anointed King reigns over the nations!

Psalm 24 is a reflection on God as a King, and it points forward to Jesus as the king of glory. He ascends to the holy place and invites us to follow him. He is the way to God, the ruler over all things, and when he returns we will reign with him. 

Jesus is the man that Adam was made to be. He is the true human being. The good news about Jesus is not just that he saves us from our sins, but also that he restores our identity and purpose as humans.

We gain confidence in God by experiencing him personally. And that is possible because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. He is the holy one who did not see corruption. In Christ, we can say that God is our refuge and we will not be shaken.

If Psalm 22 is about the cross of Christ and Psalm 24 is about the crown of Christ, then Psalm 23 is about the confidence we can have in Christ. Psalm 23 is a confidence Psalm, a psalm of absolute trust. And there are three clear confessions of confidence in this Psalm that can be our confessions too.

This is the Psalm of the Cross, quoted by Jesus as he suffers and dies for the sins of the world. This Psalm brings us into the experience of Christ’s premeditated passion to deliver and rescue us from the sin and death and bring us into the dwelling presence of God.

Jesus is the blessed man of Psalm 1. Through our union with him, we receive his righteousness and we resolve to walk with him in the way of Psalm 1.

In this beautiful story, God arranges a divine encounter to take the gospel to just one man. And he does it through another man. And, even though this story has some extraordinary elements, it’s really just the ordinary way God works to bring people to himself. The Spirit of God uses the man or woman of God to share the word of God to bring people to faith in the Son of God.