God's King is a SAVING King

Today I spoke again about the King in Psalm 72 and how that is fulfilled in Jesus. I was a little disappointed in the output of this talk. I just felt like it never really came together properly. The topic of being saved or salvation is such a big one in the Bible, but here I didn't think I really nailed it. Anyway, below is more or less what I said.

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Today, we are finishing our series of looking at the King in Psalm 72. This Psalm "sums up everything Israel’s history expected and needed in a king." (Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B, Volume 1 Theological Perspective)

So far, we have seen, from this Psalm, that this king is just, they are enduring, and they are the king of kings. Today we will see they are a saving king.

We want a saving leader that cares

This sounds nice. We would like a King who would save his people if they needed saving. We might love a ruler who would get their hands dirty in the saving work. We might love the mythical idea of the old kings who would ride into battle and fight personally for their country and people. So they know first-hand the struggle and the victory. Alexander the Great, William the Conqueror and Napoleon charged into battle on horses, putting themselves in danger.

But of course, today it is not like that at all. Today, our leaders still save their citizens, but in different ways. Kylie Moore-Gilbert was a political academic from Melbourne who went to a conference in Iran. But on her way out of the country, she was detained and charged with espionage. Some 804 days later, the Australian government was able to negotiate an agreement to get Kylie back home. Our government still saves and rescues its people, but not through battle, but through diplomacy. It's a different type of rescue.

In our Psalm today, the longing is that the King may

defend the afflicted among the people
and save the children of the needy; (Psalm 72:4 NIV)

Israel and probably us too, want a ruler who would defend those who are hurt, and to help save the needy children. This is a great calling for a leader, to consider the weakest. Bob Hawke said, “By 1990 no Australian child with be living in poverty”. While that was not achieved, he did reduce child poverty by 30%. It was an honourable sentiment. It’s great to have a leader who cares for the weak, and not for themselves or for the rich and the powerful. This is what we think a true and noble leader would do.

Later in this Psalm, it continues along with this desirable leadership trait, we read

For he will deliver the needy who cry out,
the afflicted who have no one to help.
He will take pity on the weak and the needy
and save the needy from death.
He will rescue them from oppression and violence,
for precious is their blood in his sight. (Psalm 72:12–14 NIV)

The children are not mentioned here, but now it’s simply the needy, the afflicted and the weak are to be the focus of the king. He will hear their cries, have pity on them, save and rescue them from death and violence. For those who have no one to help, the King will help.

And we are told His motivation here, “for precious is their blood in his sight”. This king is moved simply by love for the people under him.

The king has pity on the weak and the needy. He doesn’t withhold compassion when He sees their need. "this king has a sentiment of concern on steroids—he acts on his attitude and puts feet to his feelings!"(Exalting Jesus in Psalms 51-100 Appeal to His Compassionate Heart (Psalm 72:12–14))

He values those who are oppressed and experiencing violence. Not because they have royal blood in them, not because they are useful to him, but because they are in need and He is able to help. Their blood, what keeps them alive, is precious to him.

Jesus is this King

Israel was waiting for this King. Israel, throughout its history, experienced slaverly, deliverance, and then Exile, and then lived under other nation-states. They wanted a King to save them, and they knew one would come, for God had promised one would. And they trusted that one day they would come.

We know that this King, the perfect King, is Jesus. He is the saving King, who hears the cries of the needy and rescues them. He is the saving King who can rescue you.

We are in need of salvation

Now you might be thinking, I don’t need saving. I am not needy. I have a stable job, I don’t need anything. You may also be too proud to even want to ask for help, as asking for help may feel like it puts you in someone’s debt. You might think, I can do life on my own, I have worked to be self-sufficient. Ignoring the fact that this king says will save you from death, something you can not overcome.

And Jesus says, those who want to live in His Kingdom, under the perfect King Jesus need to be needy. They are to be poor and humble, admitting that they lack something.

Jesus said

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3 NIV)

Those who are poor in spirit, those who know they are needy and lack something, maybe not financially, maybe not socially, but spiritually. We all need a different type of rescue. Those who know they need God’s help will get to enter into this new kingdom.

Do you know the story of Zacchaeus the tax collector? He was this little rich guy, who people didn’t like. Zacchaeus became rich by taxing everyone more than what was needed and he kept the excess. One day, he wanted to see Jesus, and it turns out that Jesus wanted to see him. Jesus invited Himself over Zacchaeus’ place. And that caused a stir; people muttered about this. But after meeting with Jesus, Zacchaeus changed his ways and promised to repay anyone he had ripped off, with interest. At the end of this story, we have Jesus’ mission statement.

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. (Luke 19:10 NIV)

The title "Son of Man" is Jesus’ name for himself, and Jesus said, He came to seek and save the lost. Zacchaeus wasn’t poor, but he was still needy and far from God. In meeting Jesus, he was saved. He found his poorness in spirit, he saw his neediness and in doing that, he found his salvation in Jesus.

The truth is, we are all spiritually needy. We can be so lost from God that we don’t realise we need to come back to Him. We have all wandered away from God. We appreciate the world He has made and the experiences we get but we do not acknowledge that all this good comes from Him. We like His gifts, but not Him the Giver. We forget Him, we ignore Him. We live our own ways, and our own ways end up owning us. We go after things like power, money, status, family, but those pursuits don’t satisfy, they don’t last and they consume us.

We can end up getting trapped by our own freedoms. We may not even notice it, but our desires and appetites can be our own entrapment. We may not feel like we live in North Korea or in the book 1984 but we are still in need of rescuing. We are all salves to something. We can enjoy food or sex or rest or money too much and it can control what we think and do. Our desires can end up consuming us. Either if we get what we want and we binge out on that, or if we fail to get what we desire and get angry or sad when comparing ourselves to others who have what we want.

In a spiritual sense, "We were the oppressed, needy, and poor because of our sin. We were weak and had no helper." (Exalting Jesus in Psalms 51-100 Appeal to His Compassionate Heart (Psalm 72:12–14))

We all sin, Jesus said, everyone who sins is a slave to sin (John 8:34), but He came to save us, to set us free, and to bring us back to how we are meant to live. So that we are not controlled by the things we seek after, not controlled by what the crowds think, but to be free to live for God. Rightly ordering our desires.

But only those who know they are trapped will see they are in need of saving. Only those who know they haven’t lived how they ought, only those who want to face up to their regrets and guilt and controlling desires, only those who put aside their own self-reliance will be saved. Know that you are needy, know that you are poor. We are all in need of saving.

Jesus Saves

And the good news is that Jesus came to save. He came to save us from the power of sin over our lives, and from the ultimate consequences of sin, which is death and judgment from God.

The good news is that Jesus came for those who are not complete, those who haven’t made it, those who are not well put together, those who are needy. He came for you and me, and He will deliver those who cry out to Him. He will take pity on the weak and save them, even from death. The letter to Titus tells us

when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. (Titus 3:4–5 NIV)

The reason why God, our King, saved us was because of His mercy, not because of any good things we had done. We didn't take the necessary steps to be worthy and meet God halfway. It was all because of His mercy. We now have the hope of eternal life. Our king will save us from the great enemy death. This is the best news there is. We were in need, and the King of the universe has been merciful to us.

Country singer Colin Buchanan is mainly known in Christian circles for his kids' songs, but he does do some other stuff, in one of this songs for adults he says:

Seeing all my wretchedness drives me to the savoir.
I’m no where, I got nothing, I got no one else but him.
What the lost need the most is the way
What the fool needs the most is the truth
What the dead need the most is the life
It all comes down to Jesus. (Colin Buchanan, It All Comes Down to Jesus)

We need saving from God. We are trapped in our own ways; we are in chains to sin, but Jesus saves us. He frees us.

If you see your great need for help, you can cry out to God and He will save you. If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed (John 8:36). Jesus is able to save completely (Heb 7:25). He did this by dying for us in our place, removing the power of sin that traps us.

Jesus split His own blood for ours, because we are precious in His sight. He didn’t save us through negotiations or ordering others to do the work. He got His hands pierced and bloodied for us. Normally, it is the King who would send their citizens off to war so they can die for the sake of the kingdom, but Jesus, our kind King, He died so that we could be citizens of His kingdom.

And Jesus didn’t stay dead. He rose again and gives us His victory over death. When the King wins a victory over an enemy for their country, the citizens get the benefit of peace from that enemy. In Jesus we get saved, we get that rescue from death.

In the 1990s Christian song What Would You Do for a King?, it talks about a victorious king who won all the battles and kept every promise and the last verse end with:

And what would you do for a king
If He took off his crown and agreed to die
And as you tried to understand it
He looked you in the eye
and said "This is for you"
Well, what would you do?

Praise Him

What can we do for a King who has done everything for us? What do we do?

We can praise Him. "May we never cease to praise and thank him for his mercy and compassion!" (Exalting Jesus in Psalms 51-100 Appeal to His Compassionate Heart (Psalm 72:12–14))

The great thing we are told in this passage is that the king hears the cries of His needy people. God hears what we say to Him. This means that He can also hear the praise of His people too.

In our serial reading today, Mary breaks into song. She praises God for He is a God who lifts up the humble, fills the hungry with good things and keeps His promises.

God is for the poor and needy, Jesus came to save the lost, which we were. And all those who are found in Him can praise Him.

Remember the application Jonathan challenged us to do? To say “Praise God” or “Praise the Lord” out loud? How are you going with that? We can still aim to do that this week, and the next. As Christians, we have much that we can praise Him for.

America recently had their Thanksgiving Day, and one blog article I read had 48 ways to show thankfulness. On it were very helpful things to exercise our praise muscles:

3. Write a prayer that is only thanks and praise—no requests.
17. Thank God for a bad habit he has enabled you to overcome.
18. Thank God for a good habit he has established in your life.
22. Go for a walk and find a dozen things to thank God for.
38. Take a photo every day of something you are thankful to God for. Make a gallery.

Maybe you could try one of these. Then you could tell someone else about what you said or did. In turn, they could then say “praise God”. See, in giving praise to God and sharing it with others, that increases even more praise, for good things are best shared, and it only increases more joy.

From this Psalm, think of some marvellous deeds God has done and praise Him. He has saved us. He has seen us in our need and acted and showed us mercy. He has stepped in and taken our punishment for us. That is pretty marvellous.

Now, because our King hears us, we can also cry out for those we know who need to cry out to God. We can ask our God to save family members, workmates and friends. We can ask the Lord to take pity on those we know who need saving from death. We can ask the Lord to help those who are lost to see their great need and ask to be saved.

Salvation belongs to the Lord. Salvation is found in no one else than Jesus.

Ask the Lord of the harvest to save those you know. He will deliver the needy and have pity on the weak.

Our Lord is in the business of marvellous deeds. He can save people from death to life. Let us praise Him, for our King is a just king, He is an enduring King, He is King of Kings, and He is a saving King.

Heavenly Father
Thankyou for Jesus, our true King who hears our cries and saves us.
Thankyou that He died in our place, because of your mercy towards us.
Help us to praise you, for you alone offer salvation.
Turn the hearts of those who don’t know you, towards you,
So more people can priase you for your wonderful deeds. Amen.