Book of Psalms - Psa. 20, Vs. 1-3

All right, welcome this morning glad to have you here. Hey there

Sam. Oh We are going to be in Psalm chapter 20 today and There's only nine verses

Whether or not we'll get through all nine verses is yet to be seen. I do have a lot to share

And a couple of Tangents I want to go off on So if we don't get through all of it, we'll finish it up next week

I do believe we can get through all of it in two weeks. I think But there's a good chance.

We'll get through all of it in one week So, let's start with a word of prayer which will be appropriate since this is a prayer

Heavenly Father we thank you for your word. We thank you that it's truth Lord. We ask that you help us to receive

This word and to think about it help us to Understand it and if you would just shed new light on it for us father so that it sticks

Lord we love you. It's in your name. We ask these things. Amen All right. So Psalm chapter 20 verse 1

This by the way before we get into the verses, this is a prayer by a king for a king

It is an example of David Basically saying things that he wants himself to hear

But not just himself because he's not praying to himself. I don't want you to get that Idea out of this essentially

David often will say things that he himself needs to hear He says it to others.

He says it to the Lord and in this particular Chapter, we're gonna see him praying to his king

But as a king, this is certainly a prayer he would hope that his servants would pray for him and so in a sense

It's not just by him. It's for him as well And I think when we when we read through this

We will see that Why this scripture? In a couple of different ways from a couple of different perspectives one we are the servants

David himself Sees himself as a servant Even though he's a king and he knows he's the king.

He's gonna pray From perspective of a servant and of course, this is inspired by the

Holy Spirit. So the author is indeed Writing to someone else right and so while David is the penman and he's writing these words

He is writing them for the Lord and It's it's it's kind of this strange

Seven layers down thing that you can that you can go through this chapter and you can put yourself in any one of the perspectives and Learn something from it

One of the things that I think is important about this The fact that it is a prayer by a king

For a king and to his king really is that because even though he's a king he prays as a servant what does that require for a king to pray as a servant to be humble, right and Second Chronicles 7 14 tells us if my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray you remember that verse and Then it goes on to say and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways

Then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land so we have here a

Perfect example of that. We have a king praying like a servant. He's humbling himself Humility is the precursor to an effective prayer.

I Want us as we go through? chapter 20 to Not just read the prayer

Because the prayer is truly an opportunity for the one praying to ask the

Lord for Multiple things which we'll see it's all of this like we want help we want protection

We want deliverance We want provision But as we go through this chapter,

I want us to not just think of what we're asking the Lord for but what is the

Precursor to the things that we are asking When God gives to us we see

God's sovereignty on display. He's in control He's the one that provides he's the one that takes care of everything he clothes the flowers of the valley right the lilies of the field

But what we often don't realize is when we're asking for that Activation in our lives.

There is a side where we are responsible for and as we read through this prayer

If we'll think from that perspective, we'll see the prayer in a whole new light. Can we do that?

Sound good. All right, so The Idea of this prayer is that a king is about to go into battle

Or or could be that the king is about to be crowned which means battles will surely follow so the prayer is a prayer of preparation, it's a prayer of Well multiple things but it's a prayer that is

Anticipating Conflict in the future This is something that David writes we should pray in the times of trouble

So as David writes these things it's something that he himself would hope others would pray for him

But he is praying it to his king It is a prayer he might would send to an ally

King or Maybe an air King like Solomon right? This might be might would be a prayer that he would send to his son

Of course, we know he wasn't with his son much longer after he he made his son

King but That's the kind of King. He would be sending these prayers to it'd be

For the king that he serves or for the king that he is allied with So, let's start here

Psalm chapter 20 verse 1 to the chief musician the psalm of David and Matters of the king, of course, the chief musician would be employed here

So that's that's why it goes to the chief musician. This is a kingly matter and a kingly prayer verse 1 the

Lord hear thee in the day of trouble okay, so When that dreadful day of trouble is upon The king may the

Lord hear him Say that's one perspective Writing to the king right?

I'm writing to the king King in that day of trouble. May the Lord hear thee as A as a humble and faithful and loyal Servant we could pray that for our king, right?

But what if You are the king Right, you're not just praying to the king it may be a prayer that you would like to see prayed for you in the time of trouble

Pray that the Lord will hear my prayers All right. So this is a two -sided coin everything we see in this chapter is gonna have two sides to it

This is the Lord hear thee in the day of trouble so let me show you what

I mean by two -sided coin and what has to Be a precursor to the ask

For the Lord to hear you what has to happen Yes speak right for the

Lord to hear you you must first call out It requires for us to cry out to the king

Which means this prayer is not only one hoping the Lord will respond But also that in that time of trouble the king would call on the

Lord in the first place If you are a servant in A kingdom, would you not hope that your king would cry out to God in a time of trouble?

We think of living in America, right? This is our earthly kingdom so to speak

We would hope that our leaders Think themselves Kings They're actually supposed to be our our public servants the way we've set up our government, but they think themselves

Kings They act themselves Kings and In some cases they may even call themselves

Kings by any stretch of the imagination we put them in authority over us or rather God puts them in authority over us and So we we do subject ourselves to the higher authorities here in America Which we are to do as Christians, but we would pray as servants to those

Kings That the Lord would hear them in a time of trouble We want that but we also want them to call unto the

Lord in the time of trouble For God to hear them. We are implying Please call out to the

Lord, right? The next part of this verse says the name of the

God of Jacob defend me Got a question for you How does a name defend you any ideas?

Okay Using his name holds the enemy at bay. Why what's powerful about a name?

Okay, so the Lord's name is strength Like that, it's true.

Absolutely. I thought I saw a hand in the back You have something to say yes, sir

Indeed he is he is claiming a promise. It's made to Jacob. How can he do that? How can he claim the promise that's made to Jacob?

It there it is, all right included the future generations of Jacob of which David belongs right so How does the name defend you?

well Ask any of the powerful people in the world how their name defends them the Clintons the

Hill bombers the Bidens of the world They are first ones that come to mind in which they would probably need protecting because they've done some things that Otherwise would get any of us in a lot of trouble

But because they have a powerful name on earth They are protected by that name

Now What's required What's the precursor

Relationship What is the thing that makes a someone with a powerful name?

Vulnerable, is there something that can make them vulnerable? if they they have

The name right they are related But what could make such a person vulnerable?

How about his estrangement? If when someone is estranged from the family

The enemy sees that as an opportunity to attack if you are not on good terms with the family you may still have the name and It may even just because you have the name it may actually

At least cause others to pause before attacking But if they see oh, he's not in good graces with the family.

He's not connected to the money Speaking in early terms here He may actually be vulnerable you may be able to get get him

Why do you suppose it is? that currently the one who is mostly in the news for lawsuits in the

Biden family is Is not Joe Biden, but rather his son

For this very reason because his son while he does still have the name and is probably still to some degree protected by that name

There is a vulnerability there because he is not in right relationship of course, it's kind of hard to be in right relationship with such a

Messed up family to begin with but that's that's the point is that when you are not in right relationship

You find yourself at risk So the precursor

For for the one being defended by the name of the God of Jacob is right relationship because there is

Relationship there, right? You there is still

There is still promise in that name for this King and This is a good family, by the way,

I don't want to go too far with the whole Biden analogy here This is this is a name worthy of protection.

All right, this is a name worthy of Of relationship and and the promise that was given to Abraham is

Far superior and far more powerful than Then the money that protects the

Biden name I should say But Think of the prodigal son did he find himself at risk when he was estranged he did and When he returned into the father

He was back in the fold and it was safer for him there He even said it'd be better that I just go back as a servant, right?

He understood that and so when we read The name of the God of Jacob defend thee.

It's not just a prayer for defense It's not just a prayer for protection but it's also a

Prayer that the king in this scenario would have right relationship with the father right relationship with the name -bearer

Now for David to be writing this as a servant who does he serve He serves

God the king He knows that these prayers are going to be answered as we'll see later in this chapter

Like these are these are not. Oh, I hope that God is In right relationship.

Oh, I hope that God is Able to defend none of that occurs with David. There is total confidence in this prayer as you'll see but if this was a prayer for another earthly king, that would certainly be part of the hope that the

The right relationship would be there with God as a king goes into battle

There are certain things he must do prior to going into battle to ensure victory which we'll see here in just a minute as well so this is not just a prayer for Protection but also for deepened relationship.

Let's move on to verse 2 Send the help from the sanctuary and strengthen thee out of Zion.

This is the next part of verse 2 So the first part was the name of the God of Jacob defend thee Or rather no, that was verse 1 this is verse 2 here.

Yep. I just had it wrong in my notes Send the help from the sanctuary and strengthen thee out of Zion.

There's two things here send me help from the sanctuary and Strengthen thee out of Zion What in the world does it mean help from the sanctuary?

Okay, I like that where it's where God is. The sanctuary is the most sacred part of any religious building

The sanctuary of the tabernacle had three main components You had the court the holy place and the holy of holies

Each of these places signified a holier place than the last and required a deeper level of cleanliness to enter

At the court was a place of sacrifice This was the starting point, right?

It signified Christ's death on the cross. They didn't know this back then right?

We know this looking back now Christ's Work gave us an a better understanding of the sacrificial system

Blood had to be shed for the remission of sins and In the

Old Testament system. This was the first step toward help from God It helped to ensure that you were right with God Now fast forward to this side of the cross who is the sacrifice?

the sacrifice Represented something in the Old Testament system. Who did it? Who did it represent?

It represented Jesus. So Jesus provided the blood which shows that this first step

Towards receiving help from God actually comes from God this first step comes from him.

It's his blood so help from the sanctuary if you will that is a gift this the

The Old Testament people looked at the sacrifices as something that they did

We look at it as something Jesus did for us Next was the

Holy Place in the Holy Place there was a table of showbread a seven branched lampstand and the altar of incense each signifying

God in a very specific way Let's start with the showbread or the bread of presence as it's sometimes called it reminds us of God's presence with us or with man

The bread pictured somebody who did picture Jesus I am the bread of life, right?

Bread is something that you eat and indeed they would eat the showbread

What is that picture? Christ in us an internalization of Christ.

Yes This internalization is supposed to have a transformational effect on the person that Christ lives within Now here's one of my tangents.

I've been nerding out over some Hebrew and I've talked about it twice already this week.

I'm gonna go for a third time because some of y 'all haven't Heard it but this may this may take just a moment.

It's very important for us to understand This piece. I think it's really gonna give us a really great perspective on this on this idea of Having help from the sanctuary.

Okay the word for love in Hebrew is spelled in the

Hebrew alphabet Aleph Hey bet Aleph hey bait,

I think is how you say it. There's the first letter the fifth letter and the second letter

So if you were to take the the number values of those letters it would be one five two

I Don't want to get into the numerology too much

Although there's some really interesting things there In the numerology, it shouldn't be used for Purposes, but but it's just amazing how exact the

Hebrew is The word hey or the letter hey actually has a meaning in and of itself and that is to give each of these letters

Means something right? So that's what's cool about the Hebrew alphabet Each letter means something kind of like in our alphabet

We have the letter I which it can mean something in and of itself. I would say I and I mean me, right?

The letter a can mean something in the English alphabet. It can mean something singular like a dog a cat

So it has meaning in and of itself, but not all of our letters are that way What does n mean?

Oh To the nth degree day. Oh, yeah to the internet or something like that Like we don't it would P or L right?

Like we don't we don't just have a letter that means something with every single one of our letters the Hebrew alphabet

However, is that way every single letter actually has a meaning in and of itself and those letters describe the words that they compose so in other words

The Hebrew word for love being comprised of a left Hey bait

Aleph is always connected to God. It is the first letter. It is always connected.

It's a it's a spiritual Connotation to this letter, but it's always connected to God.

Hey means to give or gives and bait means house

Which seems kind of strange Like how does that how does that describe love because if you were to just take the literal meanings of each of those letters a

Left. Hey bait, you would say God gives to the house

Okay, well we can maybe kind of get something out of that right? Okay. Well God does provide but it's cooler than that because when you look at The letters and what they mean

You'll see that. Oh, by the way, I'm hearing myself. I'm getting a little feedback over here. You'll see that The the type of giving that happens

Is such a complete giving That one if you take those numbers one gives to two

It's such a complete giving that There comes a point in time where the giving is so much that you cannot distinguish between the one and the two so the person who gives

Gives to the point where there's now no distinguish They give of themselves to the point where there's no distinguishing between them and the person they're giving to That is a picture of what love truly is.

That's why marriage is depicted depicting love and we hear The two become one flesh

Because they become indistinguishable Because there should be so much of a giving from the one to the other that they become one

That's what Jesus Did for us he came from heaven to earth spiritual sacrifice

Lived a perfect life on earth for 33 plus years mental sacrifice and Then died ultimately on the cross

Physical sacrifice he gave every part of him Every part of himself

And he did that for us and now It is Christ who lives in us right picture of the showbread

But if the word love means God gives to the house Know ye not that you know ye not that ye are the temple of God You are the house

God gives to the house He gives to you to the point in which

There's an indistinguishable Dynamic that happens it is no longer

I who lives but Christ who lives within me you see so like when we have

This picture in the temple of the showbread and Christ internalized look at the next piece of furniture in the temple the the the lampstand

The lampstand is made of pure gold Which is the perfect substance to represent the divine nature of God?

It is beaten into the form of a lamp Signifying the

Son of God being made flesh Taking on a human form and Then you have the seven flames atop the candles

Of the lampstand to signify the seven spirits of God Ultimately the

Spirit of God, but those spirits are described later. I think it's in Revelation So you have a picture of the triune

God in the lampstand the Father the Son the Holy Spirit starting with the showbread internalizing

Christ now you have a picture of the triune God and And when man is transformed by Jesus he looks more like Jesus Ultimately bringing him into the fold of the triune

God Doesn't make us God don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say that we become God, but What did

Christ pray that they and I are one even as you and I are one? When the

Father looks at us What does he see the Son who gives to the house to the point where all he sees?

Is his son? We are commanded to let our light so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify not us

But our Father which is in heaven so that's a picture of after Internalizing Christ after Christ being inside of us us looking more

Like the triune God and then ultimately you have this third piece of furniture the altar of incense

Which is there to remind the children of Israel to pray and Through those prayers grow closer to God How does our help come from the sanctuary?

It comes from the radical transformation we receive from the work of Christ He dwells inside us

Transforming us and causing us to be positionally righteous Giving us instant access through prayer

To the Father what's that third part of the

Of the tabernacle you had the court the holy the holy place the

Holy of Holies the third chamber Holy of Holies being the place where man was accepted into the very presence of God not

God's presence with man man's presence with God a little bit different Right it coming to where God is not just having

God be brought to where we are, but us being made worthy and Acceptable to step into his presence to step into his chamber to come into his house

Not just God with us where we are, but man with God where he is This brings an interesting twist to a familiar verse by the way

If the show bread the lampstand and the altar of incense picture this

This process of Christ being internalized transforming us from the inside out to look more like God and making us holy and acceptable and Through our prayers growing us in relationship with him so that we can then be accepted into his chamber

Listen to this verse Romans chapter 12 that we're very familiar with I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God That you present your bodies a living sacrifice remember the court living sacrifice holy

Wait a minute. Holy. That's what the holy place does to us

It puts Jesus internalizes Transforms us makes us look like him and what's the next part

I? Present your bodies a living sacrifice. There's the court. Holy.

There's the holy place Acceptable unto God that's the Holy of Holies you see it

Which is your reasonable service, but it's the work of God that I mean, it's not that we do this all right

The sacrifice was made by Jesus. He does it Then You have positional righteousness as a result of the work of Christ so this verse

Send thee help from the sanctuary That has to do with positional righteousness as David writes this thinking of his

King He knows his King has positional righteousness, but David himself

Hoping that his people would pray this for him He himself prays for that positional righteousness that he would be transformed by God because he is the humble servant

But he sees himself not just as a servant, but also as the king of God's people he has this dual purpose

We are the same way we serve God and yet. We're supposed to be the king of the assignment. He puts us in here on earth

I Beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present yourselves for your bodies a living sacrifice

The responsibility of man the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man seemed side -by -side there and that cool

That's a good point pop, all right, let's let's finish out that verse 2 here and strengthen thee out of Zion so we just had a an example of positional righteousness we got our

Pentecostal in the back back there Jack he's like hallelujah. I Love it

And strengthen thee out of Zion, so we just had a picture of positional righteousness Right the Lord send thee help

From his sanctuary and strengthen thee out of Zion. This is an interesting

An interesting phrase here because Zion is the name of the Holy Hill in Jerusalem It is a place which

David captured It is often referred to as the City of David The word

Zion means parched place But if you'll recall in Psalm 2 we hear

I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion in chapter 2 of Psalms so Zion is a the the the word means parched place it is a place of a desert and Yet when the king is on that Holy Hill When he is in charge that place of desert becomes

Almost like utopia like it is a it is a transformed place

This is a place that is naturally parched It is a naturally a desert, but when the king is on the throne it flourishes

It turns into a flourishing place of holiness Now the geopolitical warfare that goes on in the world today over this real -place -on -earth

This hill has been raging this this war has been raging Since biblical times because it signifies the spiritual battle for righteousness you have

Israel and Iran fighting over this place all the time That is a physical geopolitical picture of what it actually represents it represents the desert of your life

Which when God is in charge and on the throne when the king is sitting on the hill it flourishes when he doesn't it?

Becomes a desert What we are seeing here in the second part of verse 2 is a prayer for help or in verse 2 as a whole

Let's read verse 2 one more time send thee help from the sanctuary and strengthen thee out of Zion so It's a prayer for help for the one who is positionally righteous from the walk of Christ and It is a prayer for strength for the same person who is experientially righteous in his walk with Christ so we actually have both sides in that one verse

The Lord send thee help from the sanctuary. That's a picture of the positional righteousness

That's something that That king cannot do in and of himself he his

God has to do it for him But the experiential righteous part the king must capture the hill and that's how we are

We have we have positional righteousness. We've bear the name Right, so there is some protection there which would cause our enemies to pause

But then we must be in right relationship and we must capture the hill and take ground in that name

Because that is what strengthens us Right, we receive help from the

Lord and we activate that help in our walk for strength

How appropriate is it that the positional was mentioned before the experiential because Christ's work has to precede our own

Verse 3 remember all thy offerings. Alright, so this is still may the Lord remember all thy offerings and accept thy burnt sacrifice

Salah All right, so the difference between offerings and burnt sacrifices is that the burnt sacrifice is a total loss to the giver

When they would do offerings they would retain part of the animal that they offered and That part of the animal was eaten

That it gave something to the giver. She's kind of cool. So the offering was like a gift to the

Lord, right? But the burnt sacrifice Was a total giving up of something.

It was a showing total commitment. It was showing a total loss to the giver and a total gain to the givee

Jesus of course is pictured by that burnt sacrifice. He gave everything for us a total loss to him and a total gain for us and Really he did it for the father

He gave himself to the father for us So he did it not just as a total loss to himself

But a total gain for us and a total gain for the father Now the law of first mention gives us a glimpse into proper sacrifice

When was the first sacrifice? First sacrifice mentioned in Scripture.

It's gonna give us an idea of what proper sacrifice looks like. Yes Genesis now in what account

Yes when God made the first sacrifice For man, which

I think is interesting The very first sacrifice was not from man to God. It was from God to man

He made a sacrifice of blood which by the way Blood is a picture of the physical again going back to Hebrew if you look at the the if You look at the the

Hebrew word for man it is aleph dalet mem aleph dalet mem which is to say

Spiritual and physical so it describes what man is. He's a spiritual physical being

Dalet is blood or physical Right, so God's first sacrifice was to sacrifice the physical to write the spiritual

Think about what that means for us Go back to the Romans first.

I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your what? bodies physical a living sacrifice burnt offering completely giving up the physical right holy

Acceptable unto God spiritual Later Cain and Abel both make sacrifices to the

Lord Cain's is not accepted. Why is it not accepted? He he sacrificed something physical, but why is it not accepted?

Because his heart was not in the right place For a king's pre -battle sacrifice to be accepted his cause would have needed to be aligned with God's His heart would have needed to be in the right place.

He would make a sacrifice and He would look to his spiritual advisors for some sort of indication that the sacrifice was accepted

Did I do it right? Am I do I have a worthy cause? What say ye does the

Lord accept my sacrifice? This was incredibly important to Kings before going into battle

Because if the sacrifice wasn't accepted He may just go and lose in battle

Why don't we do that these days? Why don't we before going into anything in life any kind of?

conflict any kind of endeavor maybe just An adventure to to gain

Why don't we pause and ask the Lord is? This is my heart in the right place is my will aligned with yours

Because if it isn't I could go and try this thing and it may even seem like a good thing But if my heart is not in the right place this seemingly good sacrifice of this seemingly good endeavor

Maybe for not it only works if I'm in right relationship with you

So verse 3 remember all thy offerings and accept thy burnt sacrifice Salah It's not just a prayer for God to accept an offering

It's not just a prayer for God to remember the offering flip side of the coin is it is a prayer that the king would be in Right relationship and have his will aligned with God's Even Jesus who we know was in right relationship at all times with the father and knew

What the will of the father was Even he in the garden said not my will but yours

So if Jesus needed to pause and ask the Lord if am I doing this, right?

Is this what you want? Why wouldn't we and then of course?

my favorite one of my all -time favorite words here is Salah Which is there is no actual meaning to the word.

It's a musical Connotation which gives a dramatic pause and so when you read

Salah anywhere in Scripture, there's a dramatic pause and that dramatic pause Means something it gives a new kind of feeling to the verse every time sometimes it's a dramatic pause of praise like This is amazing, right

Other times it's like a heavy pause like whoa, like this is important here.

This is super important I pray that the

Lord remembers your offerings and And accepts your burnt sacrifice,

I pray that you have your will aligned with his Did you hear it?

Whoa, like that that's important All right, we may have to end on verse 4 which means we're not gonna get through this whole thing this week that's okay

Actually, we may just end there because that might be a better spot to to end we will we'll wrap it up there next week

We'll go from verse 4 to verse 9 Part 1

I guess part 1 of Psalm chapter 20 what what?

pre Predates I don't know. What is the precursor to all the prayer requests?

Maybe that's a good title for this Chapter, what's the precursor because we're gonna see lots of requests and they're all good

But what's hidden in each and every request is a responsibility of man piece and so That is verses 1 through 4 anybody have any thoughts before we wrap it up Yes, sir

I Love that.

So the outer core is our flesh The holy place is our soul and the holy of holies is the new man

Connected with Christ. That's a man. I wish I had thought to say that That's a really good way to put it because that's really what it pictures, isn't it?

We sacrifice the deeds of the flesh We look more and more like Christ and ultimately

We come to a place of being holy and acceptable unto God where we get to go into the holy of holies.

It's really cool Thank You pastor David, that's a good thought any other thoughts

God made the first sacrifice for man Yeah, so God when he made the physical sacrifice he went and covered man with that sacrifice which of course is another great picture of Jesus who covers us in his blood and The physical is sacrificed for the sake of the spiritual good stuff anything else

So In order to have protection of the name, let's say

Clinton you'd have to be a Clinton, right? To have protection of the name of the

God of Jacob, which is far superior to any earthly name You gotta bear the name of Christ.

You have to be in relationship with him Or else you don't have that protection, yeah

That's how the name of the God of Jacob defends thee Pretty cool, right?

I'm having fun with this chapter. It's a good one and we'll finish it up next week. All right Well, let's pray

Heavenly Father. We thank you for your word. We thank you for all the amazing analogies that you put in it

It's just mind -boggling how many of them you have in just this one chapter You can just read and read and read forever.

I think and never get to the bottom of all of the the depth of Wisdom that's in there

Lord help us to be more like you help us to sacrifice the deeds of the flesh and To offer our bodies a living sacrifice for you that we may be holy and acceptable unto you father

We want to be in the Holy of Holies with you and we have the opportunity to do that in our daily walks if we just hold your hand and Let go of the flesh

Lord. We love you. We thank you for the responsibility that you give us Help us to be better at it.