Book of Psalms - Psa. 20, Vs. 4-9

Psalm 20 and the Responsibility to Cry Out to God

All right, so we're going to start with a word of prayer, and then we are going to be in Psalm chapter 20. Psalm chapter 20. Let me get situated here. All right. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we just thank You for Your Word.

We thank You that it's truth. We thank You that it is a transformative force in our lives. We ask that You help us to be pliable to Your Word. Help us to allow it to inform us and inform our decisions and inform our actions.

Help us to look at things like Psalm 20, which is full of requests from You, and to realize that we have a responsibility to obey Your Word, especially when asking for these requests. And Father, we just ask that You help us to be obedient to Your Word and help us to learn something today from it.

It's in Your name we ask these things. Amen. Okay. So, oh, thank you, sir. Get some water here. That's great. Now, last week we started Psalm chapter 20, and we only got through three verses. This week we're going to go through the rest of the chapter, hopefully.

Yes. There's quite a bit that we talked about. We talked about that in the very first verse, we talked about how it starts off with the Lord hear thee in the time of trouble, which implies that you need to cry out.

You need to cry out to the Lord. This is a chapter that is written to a king and for a king, by a king. So it's actually David writing this, who is a king, but he's writing it likely thinking of the Lord.

But at the same time, he writes as if he's a servant writing to his king. It's as if this is a prayer that he would hope his servants would pray for him. And so David does that a lot. He often will say things he needs himself to hear.

And so when he says, the Lord hear thee in the time of trouble, he wants the Lord to hear him in his time of trouble. But that means he's going to be crying out to the Lord. And so what we did last week was we looked at the different verses and we talked about how there's a responsibility piece to each of these verses where we request something of God.

First was hear thee in the time of trouble. And the second, oh, just lost my note there, hold on. The second part of that verse says the name of the God of Jacob defend thee. We talked about how a name can be a defense.

If you are a part of a wealthy family here on earth or a well-connected or well-known family, sometimes that name, having that name, can be a protection for you. But we also talked about how having the name of Christ, which is a name above all other names, can be the greatest protection of all.

And there's a positional part to that protection, just having that name on you. Like if you were a part of, say, the Clinton family, which is well-connected and well-funded here on earth, there might be some protection just by having the last name of Clinton.

But if you were not in right relationship with that family or if you were estranged from that family, your enemies might see that as a weakness or as an opportunity to attack. And so there's an experiential part of protection in the name.

And so we as Christians, bearing the name of Christ, we've got protection. But if we are not in right relationship with Jesus, if we're not in right relationship with the Father, then that protection is not as strong.

We're strengthened in our protection when we are in obedience to God. Not that He is not as strong or as capable or... I don't know what else I was going to say there, but it's as if it does not lessen God's ability to protect.

I should say that. But He may not be willing to protect a disobedient child because He may be instead willing for the child to go through some hard times so that the child will cry out to the Father again and draw near to the Father and come back into right obedience.

He chastises those whom He loves. Talked also about send the help from the sanctuary, verse 2, and strengthen thee out of Zion. The idea that our help comes from God's holy place. And we talked about how the temple is able to depict a process of sanctification, how the outer court...

David actually said last week that the outer court pictures are flesh and we sacrifice the deeds of the flesh on the altar. And then we are able to come into the holy place. And in the holy place, there is the showbread.

When it is ingested, it is a picture of an internalization of the Spirit of God. It's a picture of Christ within us. Then you have the lampstand, which is a picture of the triune God. And when you go through the different pieces of furniture in the holy place, it shows us, because of the Spirit of God in us, looking more and more like God.

And because we look more and more like God, we come to the place, the altar of incense, which is to remind us to pray and strengthen that relationship, be in communication with God. And that prepares us to be in the holy of holies, which we now have access to this side of the cross.

We talked about how Romans 12 depicts this. Present your bodies a living sacrifice. There's the altar. Holy, holy place. Acceptable unto God. There's the holy of holies. You get to come into His presence.

Not just have God's presence here with us, but we get to come to where He is. Get to go to His house, so to speak, which is really cool. And then we talked about how there are offerings and there are burnt sacrifices.

Offerings are gifts. Burnt sacrifices are a complete and utter loss to the giver. Jesus gave it all for us. And then, of course, my favorite word there, salah, which brings just a lot of feeling to the verse as well.

So that's kind of a quick recap of what we did last week. Let's get into verse 4 this week. And we'll see what God has for us here. Grant thee according to thine own heart and fulfill all thy counsel.

Delighting in the Lord and Aligning Our Will With His

Hey, come on in. No, that's okay. That's okay. Glad you got here, Lance. All right, so we're in Psalm 20, starting in verse 4 today. You just missed the recap, but you can go watch the recording if you want.

The prayer here is that God will grant according to thine own heart and fulfill all thy requests. If what we're doing as we go through this chapter is we look at what we're asking for, but we ask ourselves, what comes before the ask?

What is it that we're supposed to do? What's our personal responsibility before we have our requests answered by the Lord? If you are asking God to grant the desires of your heart, what must you do prior to that?

All right? So that's exactly right. Later in Psalm 34, we will read, Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desire of your heart. It's not just a prayer of fulfillment, like, please, God, give me this thing.

But it's also a hope that the king that this letter is written to, this psalm is written for, that the king will delight himself in God and cause his will to align with God's will. If he does, he'll have his desires and his decrees all fulfilled in time.

So next, in verse 5, what we're going to see is that the servant who writes the psalm, of course, this is David as a king writing the psalm, but he's writing it as if he is a servant because he serves the Lord.

David, the servant, expects his king to be victorious, which means he expects his king to fulfill all of the previous requirements that we talked about last week and this one that comes up today about aligning yourself with the will of God.

And David himself would hope that his servants would pray the same thing, that he would align his own will with the Lord, and that his servants would expect his victory when going into battle. In fact, when David would go off to battle, his servants would rejoice because they'd cheer him on knowing that this guy, he's going to win because he's God's man and he is obedient to God.

So verse 5, we will rejoice in thy salvation. There's a double meaning here. For any good earthly king, the servants would rejoice in his being saved from death in battle. We love our king. We want him to be safe when he goes off to battle.

So the servants here would say, if it were David going off to battle, God save the king, right? God protect the king. And we're going to rejoice when he returns because we love our king. We want him back.

So that's one meaning. But the other meaning is there's a selfish reason why we want him back, because he also protects us. He's our shield. And so we don't just love the guy for who he is and he's a great king and he's kind and goodly and stuff.

But even if we had a bad king, we would hope that God would protect the bad king because God put him there as a protection for us. So all authority under heaven comes from God. So when we look at our own situation here in America, we have what we call public servants, people who are supposed to serve us, the people.

And the people are supposed to be in charge. But too often we get people who think themselves to be kings, and some of them are really bad. We should still pray for them and we should pray for their protection and for their safety because they are there as a shield for us.

Sometimes it doesn't feel like it. Sometimes it feels like they're more there as a figurehead and yet are an enemy that are looking to harm us. Evil kings have always been that way. They've always been that way, but God puts them there because there's still a shield element that they provide just by being in the office.

Now we could pray, Lord, let his days be few, you know, and replace him with another. May another take his office. That's also in Scripture, right? May his days be few and another take his office. We can pray that, but we should be thankful for whatever authority God puts in charge of us, even if we don't like the authority.

And so when in verse 5 we see, we will rejoice in thy salvation, there's a double meaning there. One, we love our king. We want him to be victorious and we are going to rejoice in his victory even before he goes because we believe he's going to win.

But also we're going to rejoice that he will be returning to us to be that shield and that protection. So when we pray for Jesus to help us in times of trouble, we can be confident that our king has met all of the aforementioned conditions for victory.

We know he's going to win. He already has won. So we can go on ahead and rejoice in the salvation of Jesus. But wait a minute, was Jesus saved? Well, not in the sense that we're saved. Jesus didn't need salvation from sin.

However, Jesus took on our sin and he died on the cross for our sin, and yet God raised him up out of the grave. So he was saved from death in that sense. Just like servants praying for their king to be saved from death in battle, Jesus was saved from death in his battle against our sins.

Pretty cool. So we can rejoice in that. We can rejoice in Jesus being saved from that death. Why was he saved from that death? Well, because he perfectly met all the conditions we talked about last week and today.

First, he cried out to God. He had relationship to and with the Father. He always had positional righteousness, but also always had experiential righteousness. His gift offerings were many, and his burnt sacrifice was perfect.

His will was aligned with the Father's at all times, and yet he still, in the Garden of Gethsemane, deferred to the Father's will instead of his own. And so because of all that, we will rejoice in his salvation, for God raised him from the dead, and through the power of his blood, our sins were nailed to the cross, our old man was crucified with Jesus, we were buried with him through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and we were raised to walk in newness of life, so that it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives within us, and now it is God which worketh in us both to will and to do his good pleasure.

The next part of that verse says, And in the name of our God we will set up our banners. What does it mean to set up a banner? What do you guys think? Perfect. You nailed both of the answers I was looking for.

One, almost a branding aspect, right? Like this is a brand, this is a culture or a community in which people can come. We think of brands in business all the time, right? Like there's a community of people surrounding a business, and you know if I get around that business, I'm going to be provided this kind of service or this kind of community.

I can know what to expect when I see this logo. I can know what to expect when I see these words or this name on a billboard. If I see the golden arches, I know I'm going to get myself a burger, right?

If I go to Chick-fil-A, not only am I going to get chicken, I'm going to get excellent service as well. So like there's culture, there's community around the little Chick-fil-A logo, but also the name, right?

The name invokes that thought of service, that banner that they have erected. It means something. But then also this other side, which is it rallies the troops because in battle, you have banners. The banners differentiate between who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.

Now, I'm going to be sharing some words from Nehemiah today when we do service later. I don't know if you knew this, Lance, but I'm kind of doing double duty this week. David is out. He's just on his way back from a theological debate that was in Houston.

It's really cool. And so I'm going to be filling in for him today. But we're going to be in the book of Nehemiah, and we're going to be focusing on names. Yes, question?

Yeah. Do you remember the children's song, Love is the Flag?

Yeah, I haven't heard that song in a long time.

And then it shows the king is in residence here.

So Love is the flag flown high from the banner of my heart. And the last part of that says that the king is in residence here. That's an old children's song. I had not remembered that. You're going to have to sing it for me later because...

Oh, that's true. Yeah, the banner would often be flown over the castle, and it stood for something. Well, it often would have the name too, or invoked, or at least meant the name of the one in charge.

And it's interesting how often God refers to His name in Scripture. There's something powerful about names. We talked about that a little bit last week with the whole protection in the name. But that protection is always rooted in relationship.

You bear the name. If you're a Christian, you bear the name of Christ. You get the protection. But then there's also this experiential relationship where there's protection or added protection when you're in right relationship with the king.

If you're in good standing with the family, so to speak, you're strengthened. So, in the name of our God, both through relationship and good standing through obedience, we will set up our banners, so to speak, just like the verse says.

And the word for we will set up our banners, it's a whole phrase, but it's only one word in the Hebrew, and it is dagal, or dagal, which means to carry a standard. So what is a standard? Okay, is there another meaning that can be invoked by a standard when you say you carry a standard or you uphold a standard?

A level of competency? All right. What else? It's a meaning of the expectation of the one who rules.

Okay, the expectation or the level of expectation of whoever is in charge. If you go to work for a company, there's usually a standard that you have to meet, a minimum standard of competency. But then also there's societal standards within a company.

There's cultural standards. There's moral standards, perhaps, right? And so the banner is literally just a symbol or a sign of the underlying meaning, which is what the true standard is. The true standard is what does the king say we should do?

What does the king say is how we should live or how we should act or how we should think, right? So what it means to set up our banners in the name of God, we might say it means to do the best you can, right?

Like just to do the best you can with what you have right here, right now, with whatever God gives you. Because that's what Jesus did, right? He did the best he could. And some people might say, well, that's the standard by which we are called to live.

We're called to just do the best we can. What do you all think of that? No. Why not?

So we just kind of allow ourselves to... We talked about this last week, trying to be both in our acts. So he's piety. But it's not. He came to serve. He came to have us do some service so that we can start marching.

So there's that world of like, okay, we have a standard to meet. Now let's get marching.

Okay. So I like what Lance is implying here. Basically, to say, just do the best you can. We know what we really mean by that. What we really mean is like, it's like, you're not really going to do the best you can.

Because you don't really even know how good you can be. Most people don't understand the potential they have just in business or in life in general, much less when they're activated by the Holy Spirit of God.

Like, you have tremendous potential. You're called to be more than conquerors. Right? The standard isn't subjective from person to person. Like, Lance does the best he can. Pop does the best he can. Maddie does the best she can.

I do the best I can. That's not a standard. Right? The standard is, it's there. We're all supposed to do the standard. We're supposed to lift ourselves up to that standard. The standard is perfection.

The standard is righteousness without turning. It's holiness that makes you so different from the rest of the world that you stick out like a sore thumb. It's loving not just the people that love you, but even the people that hate you.

It's showing mercy when the person you show it to would never dream of showing it to you. The standard is being gracious. It's being kind. It's standing up for truth even when it's awkward or embarrassing.

It's active. Huh? Or even dangerous. Yeah. It's actively caring about others, not indifferently ignoring the hate and the evil of the world. Scripture tells us the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. That means you care very much about it.

It's not something you're indifferent about. Indifference is a sin. We're supposed to care. We're supposed to care enough to do something about it. We're supposed to care enough to position ourselves against evil, against sin, to go to war with it, which is why we raise a banner as if we are going to war.

We're supposed to make it flee from the land and chase it off. We're supposed to eliminate it entirely and inspire others to do the same and lead them into battle like Paul does when he says, Be ye followers of me even as I also am of Christ.

Because Christ goes to battle. Taking up a banner is an act of war. It's what differentiates the good guys from the bad. They carry different banners that bear different names, different symbols, different meanings.

Ours will bear the name of Christ. An empty grave will be its symbol. And it will mean perfection, holiness, righteousness, life. Because that is how we are seen by the Father. We're perfect and holy and righteous and we have life within us because that's how the Father sees us.

Because the blood that covers us, His Son's blood, when He looks at us, He sees Jesus. Remember, we talked about what love meant. What love actually means. When you break it down into the Hebrew, it means God gives to the house.

The word aleph also means ox. Or the letter, I should say. The letter aleph in the Hebrew means ox, which is strength. But it's always connected to the spiritual. It's always connected to God in some way.

And the way that love is written out in the Hebrew is aleph. What did I tell you in the car this morning, Sam? It was aleph-hay-bait. Is that what it was? Aleph-hay-bait? We were talking about it on the way this morning from the house to church.

And it literally means God gives to the house. Well, you are the temple of God. Your body is the temple of God. He gives to you. That is what love is. And He doesn't just give you stuff. He gives you everything.

He came from heaven to earth. That's a spiritual sacrifice. He lived perfectly on earth, not sinning even once. That's a mental sacrifice. And then it was all culminated in a physical sacrifice on the cross.

Mind, body, and spirit, He gave every part of Himself. And the type of giving that is implied in this Hebrew spelling out of the word love, it means one gives to two to the point at which you can't differentiate the two.

Like one, in a sense, almost becomes two. Because it gives so much of itself that they look the same. That's why in marriage there's a picture of a man and a wife becoming one flesh. Just like Jesus, when He gives to us, it's no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me.

We're supposed to look more and more and more like Jesus. And so we should look more and more and more like perfection. Are we going to mess up? Sure. We are. But the standard by which we live, it's that.

We may not be able to adhere to it perfectly. And we certainly don't do it justice. But that empty grave means Christ has the power to cover our weakness with His strength. So we get up, we grab that banner once more, and we continue forward.

Next part of the verse, the Lord fulfill all thy petitions. That's in verse 5, that's the last part of verse 5. David, going into battle, had his people cheering for him with assurance of victory. We have such assurance with Jesus.

His petitions will all be fulfilled by the Father. And remember what Jesus' petitions were. In case you forget, John 17, 23 tells us, I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.

Verse 24, Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world.

Remember that walk through the temple, starting in the court. There's a sacrifice, a physical sacrifice, picturing our flesh, putting away the deeds of the flesh and going into the holy place, looking more and more like Christ through the transformation of God's Spirit within us, making us one with Him, even as He is one with the Father, and ultimately bringing us to a place of acceptance in the place of the holy of holies.

And that's what Jesus is saying here. I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am. We tend to just think of Jesus being with us where we are. Come along with us, Jesus. We're going that way.

We hope you come too. But we're called to come to Him and be where He is and follow His work and look for His hand and say, all right, where's Jesus going? That's where I want to go. Moses said, if you don't go with us into the promised land, I don't even want to be there.

I want your presence. I want to be with you where you are. So if you don't want us to go into the promised land, we're not going. Verse 6, now know I that the Lord saveth His anointed. That's a weird way to put it.

Now know I. Doesn't that kind of imply like maybe He didn't know before, but He knows now? See, David didn't know everything. He had to learn. And even Jesus laid aside some of His knowledge Himself and experienced a life of learning.

I've never understood people's unwillingness to learn or to even admit that they are learning, as if learning is less than or bad or, you know, like, oh, no, you had to learn this? Shouldn't you have already known it?

We live in a culture where you're just expected to know. And if you don't know, then you're called dumb, called stupid. Ignorance isn't stupidity. An unwillingness to learn, now that's stupid. Like that, that is true stupidity.

It's like we fear seeming weak and somehow admitting that you didn't know something or that you were wrong and you had to change what you knew, change what you believed, because you found out or learned that what you believed was wrong.

It's like somehow that's weak. It's not weak. That's grace from God when He gives you truth and He helps you realize, oh, that you were going the wrong way and now you know this is the way. That's when you rejoice.

You say, thank you, Father. If our weakness, if in our weakness Christ is strong, Lord, make me powerless to resist the change You want in me. Like that's, that should be our prayer. Lord, make me weak.

What a weird idea, but make me weak to You. Strong to the world, but weak to You. Make me pliable in Your hands. Make me powerless to resist the change You want in me.

Yeah. Sometimes, very often, we don't want to learn because knowledge makes us accountable.

Yeah. Paul said, if I had not known, I would not have sinned. Right. So like knowing we almost want to stay ignorant. I remember I often do movie quotes. It's like I love movies, especially ones that are inspiring and stuff.

But one of the greats from back in the 90s, Matrix. Right. The bad guy wants to go back into the Matrix and he says ignorance is bliss. You know, like he doesn't want to know. Right. And sometimes we're that way.

We just don't want to know because when we know knowledge is power. Right. But with power comes responsibility. And when we know we're held accountable. And there's really no reason not to know. Like God has put so many proofs all around us, even in creation.

Like there is no excuse. Creation itself causes us to know. And so we can't be ignorant. We want to be sometimes. We just can't be. It's impossible. You are held accountable. You are accountable. Period.

Jesus appealed to the Father in a time when He felt weak. He gave that weakness to God and in return received strength to endure the cross. God saved Him and raised His anointed. Saved Him from the death.

I mean, He went through the death, but He was raised up from it. Death had no grip on Him. And just as David's people would rejoice in God saving His anointed King David. Jesus' people do the same. We should rejoice because He's victorious.

He's already won. The next part of the verse, He will hear from His holy heaven with the saving strength of His right hand. Now, later in the service today, we're going to see a similar phrase to this strength of the right hand.

When you consider that the Lord will save His anointed King, Jesus, with His right hand. And it's actually an interesting concept that God will save Jesus with His right hand. Because Jesus in His divinity is God's right hand.

It's a really interesting verse there. It speaks to the divinity of Jesus. Which is actually what the debate that David and Ben and I think Matt was there. Was Matt there? Matt, Noah, Ashton, everybody.

They were there listening to this debate in Houston. And it was a debate about the divinity of Christ. Like, is Jesus Yahweh? And so you had one guy who was arguing, of course, yes, He is. And then you had the other guy who had the seemingly impossible task of arguing, no, He's not.

And you could tell both men truly believed their position. And it was just sad for the guy who didn't understand that Jesus is Lord. When it's clearest day in Scripture, and you find it everywhere, this is another place.

Like, God saved Jesus with His right hand, but Jesus is the right hand. Wild. It's why when He was resurrected, He took His rightful place at the right hand of God. It is the place from which God extends help to man from heaven.

From His holy hill, or from His holy heaven. It is Jesus who sends us the help. Verse 7. Some people trust in chariots. Or this says, some trust in chariots and some in horses. But we will remember the name of the Lord, our God.

Chariots are things that are made by man. Now we know that in reality there is nothing that is made that is not made by Him. Like, even the idea of the chariot came ultimately from God. But, when man builds something, man tends to try and take credit for what he builds.

And when he puts his trust in the things that man builds, he's really just putting trust in his own devices. Horses are not things that man can build. God builds horses. And yet to put your trust in horses is to put your trust in a creation and not in the creator who created it.

Some men put their trust in their own devices. Others, in the universe, or what they call Mother Nature. The creation. But we will remember the name of our God. Of the Lord, our God. Notice how it says, the Lord, our God.

It's like, not just God. God who is master over our lives, who is Lord. Interesting how that keeps coming up, name. It's going to come up a lot in the service later today, too. Why the name? Why does it say, we will remember the name of the Lord, our God?

Why didn't it just say, we will remember the Lord, our God? The name. It is the identity of God. That's what a name is. It identifies. You don't just trust an idea of God or the concept of God. You trust in the person of God.

His identity. You trust in His omniscience, His omnipotence, His omnipresence. It invokes identity. In other words, we remember who God is. He's worthy of our trust. Verse 8. They are brought down and fallen, but we are risen and stand upright.

What does that make you think of? Those who trust in man-made things are not going to stand. You're basically taking it for face value, right? Because the last verse says some people are going to trust in man-made things or even in the creation itself, but not the creator.

We're going to trust in the person of God and who He is in the relationship we have with Him. And in verse 8, it basically tells us the result, right? Those who put their trust in anything other than the Lord, they're going to fall.

But we are going to rise. Or we are risen. We stand upright. Anything else that it just makes you think of?

It makes you think of war or battles.

Okay. Makes you think of war or battles. I like that. It's a great visual picture. One of my favorite things to do when reading the Bible is try to picture it. So I want you for a second—this kind of steals a little bit of my thunder from later today in the service, but it's okay—.

I want you to, for a second, picture they are brought down. What's it look like for someone to be brought down? Maybe in war. Yes, Abby. Okay, they die. That's a great—but what happens when you die? You do what?

You fall to the ground. So what are you picturing just before the death? The fall. What are you picturing just before the fall? Okay, and what are you picturing just before defeat? Ah, okay, now we finally got where I'm wanting to go.

Right? So we tend to think—we tend to just jump to the end. They are brought down. Right? But to be brought down, you have to be in a place of standing up first. And to be risen, you have to be in a place of being, like, fallen.

And so when you begin to look at what the Scripture hasn't said but has definitely implied, you really get this cool picture of what the situation might look like now as opposed to what it's going to look like.

Right now, it seems like the world is—they're winning. They're standing. Like Pop said, the enemy is coming at you. And we might be looking like we're pretty much deadbeats. Deadbeats. Deadmeats is what I meant to say.

How's that for a Freudian slip? Because a lot of Christians have become deadbeats because they feel like deadmeats. Right? Like, we're toast and so we're going to lose and why even try? We become apathetic.

But we shouldn't be apathetic. In fact, we should be going, okay, I may be down now, but I'm going to grab that banner and just like Mel Gibson in The Patriot, I'm going to grab that flag and put it in the ground and use the banner itself to prop myself up and get up on a knee.