The Excellency of the King

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI…

Well, our text, as I said, is Psalm 45:2. We sung it this way. Of you, most excellent of men, I sing. With heavenly grace, your lips have been refreshed, since God forevermore has made you blessed.

Well, we, we all know that, that there are some beautiful people in the world out there. Uh, in fact, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but there’s actually, like, markers of beauty that they talk about when they talk about the beautiful people of the world. There are certain things that tend to be common about beautiful people. For example, there tends to be a very high level of symmetry in the face, so eyes are balanced well, they’re not a little bit sort of wonky. Ears are equally placed on the face. There, there is equal proportionality on the face, so they don’t, they don’t have an enormous forehead or a really small forehead. They, they reckon that there tends to be an averageness, which is quite interesting, an averageness about all of their features, as opposed to one really big feature and all of the other features really small. There is an averageness about the features. And this might sound like a big word, but there is a sexual dimorphism about them, which is the fancy way of saying if you’re a man, you look manly, and if you’re a woman, you look feminine, and it’s obvious. Marks of beauty. We know them without being told about them, don’t we? Like sometimes you just drive down the road and you just see a human being, and you think to yourself, “That person is just made beautifully by God. There is something amazing about God’s handiwork in that person.”

Well, what are the markers of the, the excellence and the beauty of the king? That’s what our psalmist picks up here. Yesterday, well, not yesterday. I wish it was yesterday. Last week, we, we looked at the, the sort of preface, the introduction as the, the psalm writer sort of poured forth his heart, describing why he’s doing what he’s doing. His heart is overflowing with a theme. And now he turns his heart towards the king because he wants to describe him to us, doesn’t he? He wants to sing to the king.

And what’s really interesting is the change of pronouns. I wonder if you noticed that. So in verse one, he talks about his heart overflowing with a pleasing thing, and he’s addressing it to the king. That’s third person, right? He’s gonna write a song about the king over in the third person, and then what happens? As soon as his heart begins to think about the king, it immediately becomes what? second person. It immediately shifts from “him” to “you”. Don’t miss that. Don’t miss that. It’s important. This whole psalm could’ve been written in the third person, but as the psalmist stops and ponders on the excellency of the king, he is immediately drawn into the second person. Why? Because any time he thinks about his king, he has to turn his face to him in delight. It’s not enough for the psalmist to speak about a king over there somewhere. He must set his whole mind and affection and heart upon the king, face-to-face, and say, “You. You, my king. You are the excellent one.”

So what makes this king the excellent king? He who excels in his person. We’re gonna think in the coming weeks about how he excels in his actions, but tonight we’re thinking purely about his person, in himself. What makes him excellent?

Firstly, we’re told that He is excellent in His beauty. So, the psalmist says, “You are the most handsome of the sons of men.” Now, it’s quite interesting because in Hebrew there is no word for handsome. There’s just beauty. You can say something is beautiful, but the psalmist doesn’t say, “He is beautiful.” If y- if you read it in the Hebrew it’s kind of like, it’s kind of like, “You are the beautiful, beautiful.” The word gets doubled. The psalmist takes the word, doubles it, and squishes it together, and makes a new word. Why? Because in he- in Hebrew thought, y- you can’t bolden things, you can’t underline things like you can now, kids. You can’t chuck a highlighter over the top, and so you emphasize by repetition, and so we know that phrase so well, don’t we? “Holy, holy, holy.” You are holy, holy, holy. You’re not just holy, you’re not just holy, holy, but you’re holy, holy, holy. And here he is beautiful, beautiful. He’s not just beautiful and the ESV tries to capture that with, “You are the most handsome of all men,” and part of the problem is beauty makes us think of a girl, right? But it is beauty and it’s actually a very fitting word. Th- the word elsewhere in the scriptures gets used to describe the bride in Song of Songs, as the husband delights in the beauty of the bride. It gets used negatively of Israel, who, who God says in Jeremiah, “Made herself beautiful in order that she might be a prostitute to the nations.” Now, what’s a prostitute trying to do? Attract people to herself, right? It’s used also in Ezekiel as God describes His people. He says that His people, He describes her like a woman and He says, “She was in the wilderness, still lying in her blood after being born. And I came to her, and I washed her, and I rubbed her down with salt, and, and I caused her to have everything she need and I cared for her, and she grew and became beautiful.” So this idea not just of, sort of, like objective beauty, but attractiveness. A beauty, an outward exterior quality that draws people to it. So the prostitute adorns herself. We know this is a bad thing, but the prostitute adorns herself to draw men to her in order to make money. And, and people do this, right? They, they—I don’t mean prostitute themselves, I mean, you dress yourself nicely in order to be presentable, and if you’re young you want to attract a husband or a wife, and so you dress nicely. And the psalmist says that, that this king is, is beautiful, beautiful in such a way that he draws people towards himself.

And you gotta ask yourself the question, “Well, what makes this king so beautiful?” Well, it’s not Solomon, is it? I mean, Solomon was many things. Exteriorly speaking, he was handsome, but his quality was not that high. He had many wives, but do you remember how he got his first wife? He got her by a marriage alliance with Egypt. This is not Solomon. This is a testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ, and we’re gonna keep saying that over and over again. Here we have a glorious picture of our Lord Jesus Christ in His beauty. What makes Him beautiful? Mm-hmm. What makes him attractive that draws us to him? It’s not physical beauty, is it? Because do you remember what Isaiah says? Isaiah says, “He was despised. He was afflicted. We knew him not. He was disfigured. He was plain,” it says elsewhere. No one would have recognized him. He was just a general Joe Bloggs-looking man, and yet beautiful, beautiful. Why? Well, because of his gentleness. Think of that, that gentleness which he would display towards anyone he came in contact with. Think of that woman who’s due to be stoned for prostitution. And what does he do? Gently cares for her. He gently takes little children upon his lap and ministers to them and loves them. But he’s not just gentle, but he’s also what? Strong and bold and courageous. And so when people come and attack his disciples, he is able to defend them. And when the people want to stone the woman, he’s able to defend her. He’s gentleness with strength, but he’s also gentleness with strength and the power to save anyone that would draw near. Oh, isn’t it true that a bride so desperately wants a man who can save her, who can sweep her off her feet and keep her safe from all her foes, deliver her from fire, dragon, name whatever it is? And yet here is Jesus. He is mighty to save to the utmost. Come hell or high water, nothing will stop Christ from saving his bride. But he’s also wise. No matter what problem his people might bring to him, he is sufficiently wise to help them and counsel them in their hour of need. When people need wisdom, they draw near to him, for he has enough. But he’s also faithful. He’ll never cheat on his people. He’ll never fail his people. But he’ll always be there, and he’ll always faithfully provide. He’ll always provide. He’ll always faithfully care. He’ll always stand by them. He’ll never forsake them. He’ll never leave them. And one of the most wonderful things is he’s all of these things perfectly sinless. And so though you may have the most wonderful husband or wife, yet they will let you down, but Christ never does—but is perfect. You see, Christ is every quality of godliness and righteousness and humanness in its utter perfection, balanced absolutely perfectly. This is why sinners and tax collectors and prostitutes longed to be with him, and even Pharisees wanted to be with him. Oh, yes, many of them hated him, but many desperately wanted him in their homes, desperately wanted to spend time with him because of his beauty, because there was an attractiveness about the way he acted and his character that drew people to himself. It woos them to—

However, you and I know that there are lots of very beautiful people on the outside who are very ugly on the inside, don’t we? And so you see someone at a distance who’s beautiful until you hear them open their mouth, and you realize they’re not beautiful at all. Well, it’s different with Jesus. Yes, he is beautiful on the outside, and yes, the overflow of his heart is excellent as well. And so the psalmist tells us, “You are the most handsome of the sons of men, and grace is poured upon your lips. Grace is poured upon your lips.” His speech, he is excellent in his speech. This word for grace is, is, it’s used in a plethora of different ways. could be used for grace in the sense that we often talk about, being saved by grace. It can be used in that way, a, a steadfast, loving, gracious favor-type love grace. But it can also be used in the sense of an attractive quality of charm and favor, and that’s how it’s being used here. It’s not so much that what he speaks is favorable or works salvation, tho- though that’s true—as much as when He speaks, His words are delightful and winsome to our ears. It’s used this way in, in several different places. One example of this is in the very much the negative in the Book of Nahum. Nahum, if you wanna turn there quickly, it’s quite a poignant example. Na- Nahum 3 Nahum 3, just pick up at the beginning here, “Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder. No end to the prey, the crack of the whip, and the rumble of the wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot, horsemen charging, flashing sword and glittering spear, hosts of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end. They stumble over the bodies, and all for the countless whorings of the prostitute.” Striking imagery, right? “The nations falling over one another, butchering one another, falling everywhere, all for the pursuit of a prostitute, Israel, graceful and of deadly charms.” It’s a striking word choice, graceful and deadly charms. What’s the picture? prostitute who’s using her mouth to sell herself to the nations so that the nations would come to her. This is the negative example of this word, and it’s a really helpful imagery because it highlights the complete opposite of what’s happening in Psalm 45. In Psalm 45, we’re being given the picture of a king who every time he opens his mouth, everyone listens. Everyone lends their ear. His person is attractive, but also the overflow of his heart from his mouth woos people to himself.

And this shouldn’t surprise us, should it? I mean, think of it, when Jesus was upon the Earth, do you remember the comments people would make about Him? The Pharisees would send people to go and arrest them, and then they’d come back without Jesus. And the, the leaders, the Jewish leaders would say, “Well, where is Jesus?” And what did they say? “Well, no one’s ever spoken like Him before. I’ve never heard anything like this!” Or you think of the time he’s preaching, and we’ve just been told that he’s anointed by the spirit of God to declare the Gospel, and then what happens? He’s rejected, and his family say, his family say, “No one ever spoke like him. Isn’t this just Joseph’s son?” It’s, where did the speech come from? Well, think about it, the end of the Sermon on the Mount, the people are astonished. Why? Because He teaches as one with authority, unlike the rest of the teachers of the law. There’s something different about His speech, and you know this, don’t you? You know this, when you sit and you listen to a preacher sometimes, and it doesn’t happen all the time, but you sit and you listen to a preacher. And all of a sudden, at some point during the sermon, you all of a sudden realize that you’re not hearing the preacher anymore. You’re not even noticing his accent or the, the way he forms his words, but all of a sudden you’ve forgotten completely about Logan or whoever the preacher is, because you’re hearing the voice of your king. And all of a sudden you sort of just wake up when the sermon ends and you go, “Oh, I was- I wasn’t aware.” Or you sit and you read the Word and you get caught up in it, and you hear the voice of your king echoing through the Word of God as it’s read, echoing in your heart, and you forget the things that are around you and the voices of the world, which so crane to draw us to themselves, all of a sudden just fade into the background.

As I was reflecting on this, I, I thought of that, that story in Greek mythology, maybe you know it, of Odysseus and the sirens. Not sure if you know this, but there’s this story told, to give you the short form, there’s a story told where the captain of the ship, he hops on his ship with his men and he has to sail past some sirens. And the thing that sirens would do in Greek mythology is sing beautifully and draw people to themselves so that they would get shipwrecked and die. And this one particular lane no one ever went through without shipwrecking, and so what he did is he took beeswax and he packed beeswax in the ears of all of his men so that they couldn’t hear anything, but he himself wanted to hear the song of the sirens so he tied himself to the main mast and he said to his men, before he packed their ears so they couldn’t hear anymore, “If I try and get free, tie, uh, tie me tighter, and if I ask you to let me free, tie me tighter.” And so off they sail and the sirens begin to sing and beckon, “Come. Come to us. Come to us.” A- and he’s in torment as he listens to the song ’cause everything within him wants to go to this siren, but his men won’t let him free and they don’t care ’cause they can’t hear him. And I- I was reflecting on that, and I thought to myself, “Well, this is—This is just like the Christian life, isn’t it?” You walk through the world and you hear sirens singing, beckoning you, “Come. Come, buy. Come, eat. Come, drink, and I will give you joy.” And you’ve got 2 ways of combating this. You can block your ears or tie yourself to a post. That’s one option, but then it’s really just another form of slavery. The other option is to find a better singer. I mean, you know what it’s like when you find a song you really like and then you hear a better one. The old one’s just not quite the same anymore. Or you drink a lovely drink and then you find one that tastes better. And so it is with Christ when we hear His voice crying out to us, “Come to me all you who thirst, all you who hunger, all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” As we hear His voice, the, the voice of the world fades away. It’s just not the same. But this can only happen if you find the voice of Christ lovely. You see, if the voice of Christ to your ears is a shrieking, you’ll never come to Him, and so you must learn to love the voice of the king, hear him say that, “I am the light of the world to dispel your darkness. I am the bread of life to feed you. I am the one to take away your sins.” This is the king speaking to us, and He does so every week in the preaching of the Word and He does so every time we open the scriptures. Hear Him, and what a joy it is here again to hear Him twice, to hear Him a second time, to go into a world filled of sirens pleading with us to buy their wares, and to go forth with our hearts overflowing with the voice of the king.

And so we sing- we see the king’s beauty. He excels in his beauty. We see that he excels in his speech, but then lastly we see that he excels in a blessing, and so we’re told, “You are the most handsome of the sons of men. Grace is poured upon your lips. Therefore, God has blessed you forever.”

You know, the word bless can be used in lots of different ways, can’t it? I mean, we—Someone sneezes and people say what? “Bless you.” Now, we know there’s a big history behind that, but that’s one way people use the word bless. Another word is wh- way is when someone does something really cute, you’ve heard this before probably, so someone goes, someone, something is cute or someone does something cute and someone says, “Oh, bless.” Uh, it doesn’t mean anything, but people say it. But we can also use it in the sense of—And this is how Hebrew can use it as well. We can use it in the sense of wishing, like I wish something to be blessed, and so we say, you know, “I- I pray that you will be blessed.” It’s- it’s a wish, but we- we can’t make them be blessed but we can hope that they get blessed. “Wishing you blessings,” we say to people. That’s one way Hebrew uses it. That’s not what’s meant here. Another way it’s used is a- is a declaration. of the fact that you are blessed, and that’s partially how it’s used here. So it’s like when, when a person receives salvation or a gift or something wonderful and you say to them, “Wow, what a blessing you have received,” you didn’t give them the blessing, did you? You proclaimed the fact that they are blessed. The other way it can be used is to actually bless something and endow something upon it, endow a blessing, endow power upon it. So an example of this is God blessing the Sabbath at the beginning of creation. He blessed it. He didn’t declare it to be a blessed thing. He didn’t hope it was a blessing. He made it a blessing for His people, and those 2 senses are what we’re being told here. The King has been blessed of God, and therefore the Psalmist is proclaiming His blessedness.

Why is this important? Well, because you have to ask yourself, in what way has the King, Jesus Christ, been blessed? How was His beauty and His speech, His excellence in this world and in eternity past blessed? Well, it was sealed with a particular blessing. Lord Jesus Christ says, “Father, I have come to do Your will.” He says, “Father, glorify You and glorify me in what I’m about to do.” What’s He about to do? Go to the cross. And He goes to the cross, and He fulfills His Father’s will with all beauty, with all splendor. He lays down His life, and what is the sealing of the blessing He receives? Having laid down His life, the Father says, “Arise. Stand up and live. I bless You. And I don’t just bless You in Yourself, but since You have accomplished this work, I bless You with a people.” You see, Hebrews 11 that we talked about this morning, Hebrews 11 and 12, with Jesus, for the joy set before Him. Do you know what the joy is? It’s not just going back to heaven, because He already had that. That’s not the joy. It’s returning to heaven with a people. You see, in Ephesians, we’re told that with a host of captives in His train, He ascends into glory. And so what we’re, what we’re seeing here is this declaration of the blessing of an accomplished work of the King in His speaking and in His living and in His completing the will of God, the blessing of God is poured out upon the King. And as the blessing of God is poured out upon a king, who are the benefactors? The citizens of the kingdom, right? I mean, when a king flourishes, the whole nation is blessed. And so it is with our Savior. He is blessed of God, and so we enter into the blessing of the King.

But there’s one more way that blessing is used. Remember that song, “Bless the Lord, O my soul. Bless the Lord, O my—” You can’t bless God. You don’t have the power to bless God because he is the blessed one. He is blessed. So what does it mean? It means to declare the blessedness of someone, to praise someone for their blessedness, and that’s the third way this word is being used. You see, in one sense, the psalmist is saying, “Because you are beautiful and because you speak beautifully, you are blessed of God.” On the other hand, he’s saying, “You are these things, therefore God blesses you, God praises you.” This is why this is not Solomon. And so we join together with the psalmist in declaring the blessing and praise of the king, and not just now, but forever. God blesses him forever and we too, right? We sing his praises now and we will sing them for all eternity.

And so as beauty and speech and blessing come together in one glorious king, in one glorious man, we see the glory of God man together in one, worthy of all honor, worthy of all praise, and we see the reality working out in our midst that Jesus promised. Do you remember those words he says in the beginning of the Gospel of John? He says to Nathaniel, “You think that’s amazing? Just wait. Just wait till you see the Son of Man lifted up.” And what will happen? He will draw all men to himself. You see, as the king is exalted, as the king is blessed and raised up in glory, the result is that you and I are drawn away from all of the other cheap beauties of this world. You are dr- w- you are drawn out of your sin as you hear his voice and see his beauty and experience his blessedness, and there’s a few different lessons in that, isn’t there?

Firstly, have you seen his beauty? Have you heard his voice? Have you seen him lifted up and answered his beckoning call? Because if you haven’t, why not? It makes no sense. I mean, can you—What would you think of the fool—Well, I mean, what would you think of the fool who has the most beautiful woman on the world come to him and say, “I would love it if you married me.” And he said, “Eh, I could, but there’s some far uglier prospects.” But what a moron. And yet are you not doing the very same thing when the most beautiful of beautiful men is before you? The man with the most attractive speech that could ever be heard, he who is most blessed among men, and he says to you, “Come. Come to me, and I will bless you in the beloved.” And you say, “That’s a wonderful idea, but actually, I love myself far more than I love you.” Would that not be a fool? Come to him. Come to him tonight and he will freely be yours forever.

But there’s another lesson, isn’t there, for those of us that are believers. Some- some of us are tempted or are backsliding. We’re tempted to turn away from our beloved, or we already are in the midst of it, and to pursue uglier things and to listen to uglier voices. Don’t buy it. Don’t chase it. Don’t turn to the ugliness of this world, but rather say, “I’d- I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold. He’s better than anything else.” Don’t turn after the cheap knockoffs. It’s much more obvious nowadays, but when I was a youngster, you know, you used to buy things and then you’d find out afterwards that they were parallel imports, and you thought they were the real deal. And you buy some Nikes and they seemed to be pretty cheap, and you thought you got a steal. that you actually got a cheap pair of, I don’t know, Chinese-made shoes or something, probably Taiwan made them, with a Nike sticker on it. You felt ripped off. But don’t, don’t buy a parallel import. Don’t go to the parallel import. Go to the beautiful one again. Refresh your love in the beloved. Every time you feel your heart beginning to be drawn away to other loves, which happens, doesn’t it? Hear back to the voice of Christ. hearken to him, turn back to his word, look at his beauty.

And for those of you who are going strong and love him, well, keep loving him. Keep your ears closed to the temptation of, of cheaper options. Don’t allow the voice of the devil in this world to whisper sil- silently and quietly in your ear. Don’t turn your eyes to the beautiful things of this world which will tempt, to distract you and take you away from your beloved. But say, “I have eyes for one husband. I have eyes for one husband, the Lord Jesus Christ, my king. And I have ears for one song and one speaker, the king of kings and the lord of lords.” And you know what? They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and it’s just as true in this. Why? Because you must have faith to behold his beauty. Because he’s not standing here, and Logan’s a really poor representation. But by faith, when we eat at his table, and when we read his word, and when we hear him preached, by faith we see his beauty and we delight in him. So fill your eyes and ears with Christ, our king. And you know what? Everything else will grow strangely dim. Why? Because you’ll see it for what it really is.

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