What do you cling to when your faith is challenged? Your friends, your church attendance, your family, your quiet time, your emotions or psychological health? A prayer that you prayed? These are times in our lives when we really want to know God’s will. Psalm 110 delivers again. Here we see the covenant of redemption, God’s eternal plan, and the appointment of Christ to his office. In these poetic words we see Christ’s Kingdom, his church, his enemies, his humiliation, his exaltation, and triumph.  

Every Christian should be well acquainted with Psalm 110. I could give you way more than four reasons. As a matter of fact, Psalm 110 will help us in perseverance. Hebrews 10:23 exhorts us to persevere in the Christian faith telling us this: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” Doesn’t it seem strange that holding fast to a confession is key to perseverance?

Building up to this verse, the writer to the Hebrews packs in a lot of theology. When studying this verse within its context of Hebrews for my book Theological Fitness, I discovered that new scholarship suggests Hebrews is a sermon letter based off of Psalm 110. I found that fascinating. Psalm 110 gives us the confession of our hope. It may be my favorite piece of Scripture. I want you to love it as much as I do, so here are some reasons why every Christian should study it.

Study Psalm 110…

If you want to hear God speak

The Christian bestsellers list shows us how badly we want to hear God speak. Isn’t that the success of Jesus Calling? We want to hear from God—today. And so Christian bookstores are full of bestselling books telling us about special words from our Lord to the authors, and how we can hear him too (or at least through them). This is what many well-intentioned believers think they need to persevere in the Christian life. But what we really need is to hold fast to our confession of hope.

Why don’t we let God tell us our confession of hope? This is not a mere message for one person today, but something that applies to every single one of us in every single situation. Psalm 110 begins with an amazing revelation, “The LORD said…” Here is our special word from the Lord. In his commentary on Psalm 110, Puritan Edward Reynolds elaborates,

The “word of God” in Scriptures signifies his blessing, power, pleasure, ordination. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” Matt. iv. 4. That is, by that command which the creatures have received from God to nourish by, that benediction and sanctification which maketh every creature of God good unto us, 1 Tim. iv.5. God’s saying is ever doing something; his words are operative, and carry an unction and authority along with them. (An Explication of the Hundred and Tenth Psalm, 5.)

And so we see this blessing and ordination again in Scripture in Matt. 3:17,  “and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’” None of us can speak with that kind of authority. Study Psalm 110 to hear what the Lord says.

If you want to know God’s will

What do you cling to when your faith is challenged? Your friends, your church attendance, your family, your quiet time, your emotions or psychological health? A prayer that you prayed? These are times in our lives when we really want to know God’s will. Psalm 110 delivers again. Here we see the covenant of redemption, God’s eternal plan, and the appointment of Christ to his office. In these poetic words we see Christ’s Kingdom, his church, his enemies, his humiliation, his exaltation, and triumph.

And we see this seemingly insignificant word that is like an X-marks-the-spot on the map for us: Until→ You are here.

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