Psalm 22:22–23

0:00 Good evening, church. We will be in Psalm 22. As Greg mentioned, you'll be helped by turning there and let your eyes kind of bounce around. Won't be reading much of the psalm. Try to stay in our verses primarily, but I think you'll be helped to see some of that text. So I love sports and, in fact, grew up playing most different kinds of sports that I could. Anything that was available, I was going to play that type of sport at some point. But the one sport that I just don't really like at all is golf. Yep, that's about what I expected.

0:33 You know, some groans, some of you who are golfers, maybe. I just don't know much about golf. Frankly, I'm horrible at it. The last time I went to Topgolf, it was just a joke, though I didn't end last. So ask me later who I did beat. But I'm just horrible at it, right? I don't even know who any of the key players are. So I know the Ryder Cup just finished, right? I'm at least aware of golf. So I know that the Ryder Cup just wrapped up. I don't know any of the players. I looked at a picture of those players. I don't know any single one of them. So I'm just not a golf fan.

1:03 But back in 2001, the U.S. Open happened to be taking place in Tulsa. So originally from Oklahoma, my sister, who is a golf fan, decided that we should go to the U.S. Open. So again, being a sports fan, I thought, well, this will be fun. And at that time, Tiger Woods was kind of the center of the golf universe. And I thought, well, I'll go and maybe I can catch a glimpse or two of Tiger. So we show up on the Friday, the Thursday, half of the day had been rained out, so we got a day and a half worth on Friday of golf to catch, and at some point in the day, I don't really remember when, I just happened to notice that there was a lady standing next to me as there had been on every single hole who'd been just kind of chatting up with other people around her, or as you do at these golf tournaments, and I didn't know who this lady was until my sister leaned up and said, that's Tiger Woods' mother. What in the world? This is Tiger Woods' mom standing next to me? So, you know, for the rest of the day, this lady basically just kind of followed me around and happened to find me and would sit and talk to me. But,

2:09 you know, the thing was when I first found out who this lady was, I was shocked. I was stunned. this was no just normal lady. This is Tiger Woods' mom. Her identity was a huge surprise to me. Well, I think who we really are as Christians should be even more surprising. Our identity as Christians should be even more stunning when we stop and think about it. And we're going to see just a little bit of that tonight in this passage. So, Psalm 22, and we'll read our two verses for tonight, verses 22 and 23. David writes here, I will tell of your name to my brothers.

2:47 In the midst of the congregation, I will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise him. All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel. So the few things I want us to consider from this text in just the next handful of minutes is this, that we, we as Christians, are brothers and sisters of the risen King, and we are those who rejoice at God's work. We are brothers and sisters of the risen King, and we are those who rejoice at God's work. And we'll just look at those two separate things, kind of as themes that we can pull out of this text. So number one, we are the King's brothers and sisters. So if we were to read the entirety of Psalm 22, I think your mind would immediately be picking up on different phrases here and there. You would think this is something I'm very, very familiar with, and that's because the New Testament writers look at Psalm 22, and they grab segment after segment and phrase after phrase, and they see that it's a prophecy describing Jesus. So even Jesus himself, when he's on the

3:50 cross, he shouts out verse 1, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So in here, in our passage tonight, we're not only in the middle of the psalm, kind of just as you look at the psalm, right, you kind of count the words. We're somewhere in the middle of the psalm. We're also at the turning point of the story that this psalm is telling. So King David's been describing what feels like and what very well might have been a near-death experience for himself, right? So he didn't actually die and come back to life to write this psalm, but he's writing something that feels like a near-death experience for himself. So he feels abandoned by God. There's enemies that are encircling around him and drawing in closer and closer to him. There's trouble at every turn. And there in verse 15, you'll see it. He finally says that he feels like he's been laid in the dust of death. He's crying out for rescue and for salvation. And then right before our text, right there in verse 21, there's a stunning phrase where it says that David says he's been

4:55 rescued. So what happens? What happens after he's rescued, right? He's almost dead. He gets rescued. And then what happens? Well, that's our verse for tonight, verse 22. He says he's going to go tell of God's work to his brothers in the midst of the congregation. And then he's going to give praise to God for this incredible rescue. Well, so if this psalm, as we've already said, if it points forward to Jesus, right, the New Testament writers give us that ability to say This whole psalm, it's about Jesus.

5:25 If this whole thing is about Jesus, and yet we find ourselves right here at this critical point within kind of the narrative of the psalm itself, what are we looking at here in this passage? Well, what's this particular text, our verses for tonight, verses 22 and 23, what are they pointing to? Well, we're staring at a prophecy of what Jesus, our risen king, would do once he comes back from the dead, once he's raised from death back to life. He would stand up and proclaim what the Father had done. Now, look, don't run too quickly by a super critical point in all of this.

6:01 So if Jesus had died, right, if he died and he had to be raised from the dead, that means, among many other things, that he was fully man. Like, he's like me and you. We confess, and rightly so, that Jesus is fully God as the second person of the Trinity. of course, yes. But this passage, and so many others like it, show that he's also fully man. And because he's like us in our humanity, he calls us brothers. Well, how do we know that?

6:33 After all, that's a huge claim, right? If you've got a pet, your pet, as much as your pet dog might love you, your pet does not come up to you and say, you know what, master, you and I, we're family, right? You might have that familial affection before your pet, but that's your problem. That's not actually reality, right? Or maybe your phone, right? Your constant companion for every single one of us. Your phone can't come to you and say, you know what, we're family. No, you're not, right? You're not family. So for us, those are kind of silly and absurd, but for us to look at the Lord of the universe and say, yes, we're brothers with the Lord of the universe, is equally absurd on its face. So how do we know that that's what's happening here in Psalm 22?

7:25 Well, because it's the very argument the author of Hebrews is making. When he quotes it, he quotes this verse exactly like this in Hebrews chapter 2. There, the author of Hebrews is making an argument for the human nature of Jesus, and he says that Jesus suffers, dies, and after the resurrection, He can say these very words of verse 22 about us because he has a nature like ours. Because he's been made like us in every way. He can call us brothers, and it's not some sort of cosmic play on words.

7:59 Friends, that should stop us in our tracks. The risen king of the universe, the one who's defeated death, calls us brothers. and sisters. And even more, he's not even ashamed to do so. Like, this is why Jesus tells Mary in our text from this morning in John chapter 20, immediately after his resurrection, to go to his brothers, not just his disciples. His followers are given a new identity as brothers. This one little verse should make us see that we are the king's brothers and sisters, and he's not ashamed of us, though we're often arrogant, rude, ignorant, poor, pathetic, weak, and utterly unimpressive in the sight of the world, King Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters.

8:50 Friends, if the king calls us brothers and sisters, it's an incredibly small matter to be called anything else by mere tongues of this world. But he's also giving us a deeper, and I think an even more eternal way to consider how we relate to one another. So if we're his brothers and sisters, if we're brothers and sisters of the king, then you and you and you and I, we're brothers and sisters together in Christ. Look, we may have different relational bonds now, right? So even in this room, there's friend and friend. There's kind of that bond. There's mother and daughter.

9:31 there's husband and wife, there's church member and pastor even, right? There's all these different ways that we relate to one another, but those are not even the deepest bonds together that we have. The deepest bonds that you and I have together are those of brother and sister in Christ. That's the bond that will last forever. So I wonder, do you approach other members, fellow members of this church with that in mind? When another Christian here, when even another friend here does something to harm you, does something to hurt you, says something flippantly about you, do you just kind of quickly discard that relationship as though it's something that you can take it or leave it?

10:12 After all, it's just a friendship. Those come and go. Friends, don't do that. We're brothers and sisters in Christ. Or is your connection to other Christians here based mostly on common likes and dislikes. We have lots of things in common. We don't have lots of things in common. I'll hang out with this person and not with this person. Brothers and sisters, I challenge you to not merely consider one another in terms of likes and dislikes. We're brothers and sisters in Christ. Look, Jesus in all his resurrection glory, post-resurrection, fully glorified, he is not ashamed of us he doesn't just simply tolerate us he freely calls us brothers and sisters and we as brothers and sisters should freely and joyfully look around us and embrace one another with that same type of affection the primary way that we should view one another's in this church is as brothers and sisters in christ but we're not just the king's brothers according to this text

11:19 The passage also says we should rejoice at God's work. So number two, we are those who rejoice. Look back at the text. The first thing David says he's going to do once he's in the midst of the congregation, in the midst of his brothers, is to what? Is to praise God. And then the very next thing he does, look at verse 23. He tells the brothers to join him in praising God. So why does he do that? What is he praising about God in that moment? Well, first and foremost, he's just simply praising God for who he is. That's verse 22, right? He's telling of God's name, and that's just another way of saying he's telling of God's character.

11:59 But in the kind of larger context of this passage, we can see that David's also praising God for his work. Look at verse 24. That's where David says that the Lord has heard the cries of the afflicted, and he hasn't despised him. He didn't hide his face from the one who suffers, but he listens to the one who suffers. He's rescued the one from death, the one who was dying, the one who was being destroyed. He's brought him back to life, and all of that taken together causes David's heart to swell up in praise. Like, we know on this side of things, we know that the Father has done all of that chiefly in Jesus, right? We can run straight to that, and we know that that's happened chiefly in Jesus. We know that David was just a shadow of that, and Jesus is the full picture and yet the commands, the commands of Psalm 22 are the same for all of us. So we as brothers and sisters of the king, what are we to do? We're to be those who rejoice in what God has done.

12:59 We praise him, as the text says. We give him glory. We stand in awe of him. But how do we do that? That kind of feels like cheap Christian language. Yes, we know we're supposed to do that. How do we do that? What does that look like to do that? Well, if we're David and his audience, we simply recount what God has done in preserving his king, right? In this psalm, the king was essentially to the point of death, and the Lord rescued the king. That's why he praised him. He came from death to life, and he rehearsed to himself how the Lord had done that. Well, we know that same story in our lives, don't we? I mean, we heard that same story here from this pulpit being preached, and then when our brother and sister Dawson and Brooke stood up this morning, they said almost those exact same words, this is my story of how I've been brought from death to life. We can recall how we've been brought from death to life as well. But there's another very interesting piece, I think, to all of

14:07 this that we just might not see right away, but I think we need to look at. One of the things that David's describing here in this psalm is this movement from destruction or death to a new life, to then past our text, to an offering that's being done according to the law, and then finally a feast. Because of God's work in rescuing him from death, David rejoices not just with his words, but with a feast. Friends, that's not at all unlike what we're about to do right down here. We are those who've been rescued from a death far worse than David's describing here. Our sin demanded an eternity separated from the love of God where we would face a just punishment for our rebellion against the king. And yet it was that very same king and his work on our behalf that has saved us from death and has given us new life. And as Christians, we celebrate that whole movement. We celebrate that rescue from death to life with a feast, with the

15:12 Lord's Supper. So when you take the supper here in a moment, if you're a Christian and you will be doing that, remember, it's not just a ritual. This is not some rote Christian ritual only. This is a way to recount to your own heart, to your own mind, to one another, how the Lord has brought you from death to life. When you eat that cracker, when you drink that juice, it's not a full feast yet, right? You're not going to get full on this, but it is pointing you to that day when you'll feast together with the Lord and you'll be satisfied forever. Friends, rejoice in the Lord.

15:49 Praise Him, glorify Him, stand in awe of Him, as the text says. But do all of that, even this evening, by enjoying the feast of the supper and how it reminds us of that feast that is yet to come for all of those whom the King calls His brothers and sisters. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your incredible goodness and kindness to us in making us brothers and sisters of the King. We thank you that you didn't just save a people and then leave us on our own.

16:23 You don't just make us Christians and then kind of cast us out by ourselves, but you make us brothers and sisters with one another and brothers and sisters of the King. Lord, tonight as we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we pray that you would remind us of that reality of your rescuing us from death and giving us new life. We pray that you would fill us with joy at the gospel and the fact that we now have eternal life because of what Christ has accomplished for us. We thank you for your word. We pray that you would do these things in our heart, and we ask all of this in the name of Jesus. Amen.