You know how when you think about buying something- a new coat, or a car…and you’ve never noticed that exact model around much until you start looking and you suddenly realize that everyone has one?

That’s how I’m feeling about the Psalms and music right now. All of the sudden, since we’re reading in the Psalms, it feels like every song I hear has a connection to the Psalms. So this new one we’ve learned, “I Will Lift My Eyes,” has so many words and thoughts that come out of Psalm 121: “I lift my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, Maker of heaven and earth.”

Last week we started reading the Psalms together. And we talked about how while much of the Bible highlights God speaking to people, the Psalms articulate humanity’s speaking back to God, the human response to God’s word and presence that we call prayer. So this whole book is really a kind of dialogue between real people and a real God- Prayer.

I also told you that the first two Psalms really were an introduction to the whole book of Psalms. When we read Psalm 1, the camera really zoomed in on the individual- what kind of person will I be? How will I respond to God’s Word, Which way will I choose to live?

This morning, as we read Psalm 2, we get a big picture, a wider-angle look- at nations, governments and powers.

It’s almost like the person who put the Psalms together said: “If you read these two Psalms…then you’ll be ready to pray.”

Now, I want your help this morning. Psalm 2 can be broken up into four different parts (verses 1-3, 4-6, 7-9 and 10-12). Why don't you open your Bibles to Psalm 2.

Verse 1-3 is the voice of a Narrator, and I will read that.

Verse 4-6 continues the Narrator, then transitions to God’s voice- pulpitside.

Verse 7-9 seems to be the voice of the King, God’s Son- lecternside.

Verse 10-12 concludes with a word to the nations and rulers- balcony.

Darn it. There’s that word “happy” again. As I mentioned last week, it makes me Unhappy that it’s translated this way. I’m choosing to read it as “blessed,” favored by God…not a happy feeling.

Today, as we walk through this Psalm a bit, I want you to just keep this one word in mind: BIG. That’s the word. If you only take one note today, write “BIG.”

Most would agree we live in an extremely consumeristic and individualized society. And much of our pursuit of Christianity in the U.S. has become…well, very consumeristic and very individualized.

a) First, the consumeristic side- We’ve put God in a pretty small box. We’ve looked at the things going on in the world, and tried to fit God around them, and as a result God gets pretty small. We can end up treating Jesus like He’s our personal genie, at our beck and call. Like His only job is to specifically deal with whatever problems I bring up. He’s like Amazon or some fulfillment house…call ‘em up, order what I want. And if I can’t get it, I’m pretty unhappy, I maybe complain about a feeling of “distance.” Maybe even go elsewhere. That’s what consumers do if they’re unhappy.

I talked to someone a while back who was in the middle of some big problems. They kept saying “I don’t’ feel God with me, I don’t think he’s listening.” And I said, well, what would it look like if God WAS present? And they said “He would give me what I ask for.” Anything short of that meant God wasn’t present.

b) Second, the individualistic side - in evangelical faith, personal relationship has often come to mean “me and my buddy Jesus.” The sense of being in the presence of a holy, sacred Almighty God has been casualized to the point of ridiculousness. (There’s a whole craze- celebrities wearing t-shirts with a logo and everything that say “Jesus is My Homeboy” (my friend, my buddy). Of course, this speaks to an intimate and personal faith, which is great, but it’s pretty disconnected from the larger scope of the world- other people, let alone nations.

These are such limited boxes for God. They make him so small. I think it’s the intention of Psalm 2 to remind us that while God IS intensely personal and interested in us (Psalm 1)…God is also BIG. Bigger than our boxes.

Psalm 2 is about big things. Nations. Peoples. Kings of the earth. Rulers. It’s about government and politics, it’s about conspiracy and counsels and plotting, it’s about the powerful.

This seems very appropriate for this week, actually, doesn’t it? The Martin Luther King Jr. weekend and the Presidential Inauguration. We’ll be seeing dramatic pictures of the Lincoln Memorial in DC, the steps, the stately and solemn statue of Lincoln inside, the carved words that were spoken and put into costly action long ago.

As it turns out, next month is the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. We’ll recall the work of Martin Luther King Jr, 1963, a strong Christian, standing on those same steps, envisioning the time when his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

And in a nice coincidence of history, we’ll see a new president inaugurated on those same steps, the first African American President in U.S. history. It’s going to be quite a thing. It is big stuff. The wheels of history are turning, people are talking about the balance of power in the world and the country changing, about new strategies. It’s very exciting. It’s Big.

As far as we can tell with the historical setting of Psalm 2, big stuff was happening there as well. Most likely the coronation of a king, probably a Davidic king. The power politics of the ancient Middle East were likely in full swing, and historically many things- rebellions, wars, assassinations- happened when a new king came to power. It’s big. And, Psalm 2 tells us: God is even bigger. All of the politics and movements are part of God’s world, but it’s God's world. God is bigger than politics.

In Psalm 2, the powerful rulers of the world are conspiring together- what might that look like today? Who would be there? The Russian president? The U.S. president? The Chinese president? The dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong? Terrorists like Osama Bin Laden? Imagine them all around a table together, aligned together for once and plotting. These powerful “plotters” counsel- “against the Lord and his anointed” (note: the word “anoint” is the same word we get Messiah from). They have ideas, opposing the Lord and His Ruler.

Charles Spurgeon was an 19th century pastor in London who was renowned for his scholarship and preaching, and studied the Psalms a great deal. In fact, I saw his church in London a couple years ago, the Metropolitan Tabernacle with huge columns and seating for several thousand. When Spurgeon wrote about these “plotters” in verse 3, he paraphrased the rulers of the world as saying:

“Let us be free to commit all manner of abominations. Let us be our own gods.
Let us rid ourselves of all restraint.”

Why were they plotting against the Lord and the Lord’s king? Because they do not want to be restrained. (“Let us burst their bonds asunder, and cast their cords from us.”). They had this wrong idea, a small idea. They were mistaking God’s Word as a barrier and a hindrance rather than freedom. “If we could just get rid of God, and His anointed.” But real freedom has to do with living into who you are, not in being unrestrained. A lack of restraint leads to more captivity than we can imagine.

We make this mistake, don’t we? Not just leaders. Think about some of our most cherished and fought-over rights and freedoms in this country. We adamantly want no censorship (so we have a generation of addicts and near addicts to pornography…or we have children who by the 7th grade will have watched 8,000 murders in various media -- all of which is fiercely protected by law). Or we insist on the right to bear arms with few controls. As a result, if you are my age (50), in your lifetime a million people have died in the U.S. from gun shots. Just don’t restrain us. Let us be “free.” That’s the idea. God is bigger than our ideas.

Do you know who the main and dominant character of the book of Psalms is? It’s not David, or anyone else: it’s God. God laughs at the smallness of the bigshots of the world. God is even derisive, he speaks in wrath, he terrifies those who have terrified others.

We squirm a little here. This isn’t fitting the picture we have of God- meek and mild. But this says God is terrifyingly active. It’s difficult for us to imagine this because we’re not sure God should be that way. And because so often we don’t see the results- it seems like the violent, the plotting, the evil win an awful lot of the time.

It’s hard to see how such events could possibly fit under God’s control. It’s partly difficult because of the time factor. God is bigger than our sense of time. We don’t always see the end of the story. Or even the end of the chapter in our lifetime. We don’t have the perspective of nations rising and falling, of empires crumbling. We rarely get to see that evil eventually does not/will not triumph.

When I read a bit of Spurgeon this week, something he referenced gave me a little perspective on this. It dates back to the Roman emperor Diocletian in the 3rd century. Diocletian is well-known historically for the persecution of Christians. And in fact, he had medals produced in his lifetime, and pillars erected in Spain on which he had inscribed his name, his triumph in extending the empire, and trumpeting the fact that he had “abolished the superstition of Christ” or “extinguished the name of Christian.” Someone living in that day may well have thought it. And yet 1700 years later, there are something around 2 billion people who claim the name of Christ. No one saw it coming in the day Diocletian proclaimed Christianity dead. But God was bigger. Bigger than our sense of time.

And God is bigger than our expectations.

In Psalm 2 the special person that God sets on the throne, his anointed, the one he births, the one he calls ‘my Son” receives everything- nations, the ends of the earth, and power to break enemies like so much clay pottery. It is this Son, who is been given all things. At the time of this Psalm, Israel was looking for an anointed ruler that would cause her to control the world. And it never was totally fulfilled in the way Israel imagined or expected.

God was up to something even bigger than Israel’s wildest, largest visions. God was not merely sending some ultimate ruler and manipulator of power who might for a certain era put Israel in the driver’s seat. Instead, he would send One who chose to give up ultimate power to serve others and save others…for all time. For eternity. This is the anointed son the Psalm talks about. The messiah. The one the early church said, as we read in Acts 13, was referring to in Psalm 2 was Jesus the Christ. The Messiah.

And in that unexpected messiah, in Jesus, God enters into human history, and moves it in a direction, HIS direction. Jesus did not send the opponents that plotted against him (Pilate, Temple leaders, Judas) away quaking in terror. He sent a far bigger opponent- death and the fear of death…away forever. He’s bigger than our expectations.

Perhaps with all this talk about God’s bigness, sovereignty, control, power, we fear that we might get lost in the shuffle. After all, who am I in the midst of the pages of history and movements and politics? And so side by side with the warning to kings and rulers at the end of Psalm 2, we have what really amounts to an invitation: “Blessed…are all who take refuge in him.”

The favor of God rests…on all who take refuge in him. Several dozen times the Psalms will repeat this word and this invitation- to “take refuge in him.” It’s a great word, actually. To seek refuge- to go to for shelter and protection, as in a person caught in hot sun finding the shadow of a tree, or warrior finding safety under a shield, or small bird in the shadow of it’s mother’s wings. Whatever our problems and worries and fears, Blessed are all who take refuge in him. God is big enough for us.

So God is big. Bigger than our boxes. Bigger than our politics. Bigger than our ideas. Bigger than our sense of time. Bigger than our expectations.

Here’s what I think the Psalmist is doing. He says:

Read Psalm 1- you, the individual person, what choices will you make, which way are you going to live? God is with you in it, personally and day by day- “How blessed is the one who delights in the law of the Lord.”

And Read Psalm 2- how big is God? Bigger than me…bigger than governments or time or history. Big enough to save us. “How blessed are all who take refuge in him.”

Now, if we’ve heard both things- the intimacy of God that reaches the one, and the size and power of God that dwarfs the world, then we’re ready. Now we’re ready to start praying…and we’ll start that next week with Psalm 13.

Let’s pray.