A Hymn of Trust

Amen. Please be seated. Oh, before we turn to our Scripture for the preaching this afternoon, which will be Psalm 20, let me pray for not just the preaching, but for our entire worship this afternoon.

Our Heavenly Father, again, your people assembled in your name, again, with open hands, with nothing to bring and much to return home with, your word, Father, your favor, shower down upon us because of your Son, Jesus Christ.

We come to you, Lord, once again, seeking that help which only you can give and that help which we so desperately need, that you, by your Spirit, would lead us to open our eyes to the wonderful truths of your word, to understand you better, to know Jesus Christ more fully, to love him more completely, to know the power of your Holy Spirit within us.

Father, accomplish these things this afternoon in us as we're assembled in your name, even as you did this morning, and have been so faithful Sunday in and Sunday out. Bless our worship time once again, for we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.

Trust, Hope, and the Opening of Psalm 20

So Psalm number 20, which I titled this message, A Hymn of Trust, trust being somewhat of a fraternal twin to what was preached to you so ably by our Pastor Brian this morning about hope. Hope and trust sort of go together, and oftentimes in the Scripture, if you substitute the one word for the other, you do no harm to the meaning, though we don't play loose and easy with God's word.

When hope is in there, we should say hope, and when trust is there, we need to say trust because that's God's inspired word. However, oftentimes the concept of them is so close that you could, without hurting the meaning that is being conveyed, use one for the other.

So a hymn of trust in Psalm number 20, a hymn of trust, when we pray to God, we do so with trust that he is. Because we pray with trust that he hears and that he answers, Hebrews 11, 6, whoever would draw near to God must believe, or can we say must trust, must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

So that brief introduction, please stand for the reading of God's word, Psalm number 20. May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble. May the name of God, the God of Jacob, protect you. May he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion.

May he remember all your offerings and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices. May he grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans. May we shout for joy over your salvation and in the name of our God set up our banners.

May the Lord fulfill all your petitions. Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed. He will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright. Oh Lord, save the king. May he answer us when we call. God bless the reading of his word. Please be seated. So as I said a moment ago, Pastor Brian preached to us this morning about the hope that was coming into the world in that announcement to Mary.

The hope of the world is none other than Jesus Christ, whether you have him or no, he is the hope of the world. He's the light of the world, and in him we find from God his yes and amen, all his promises in the Lord Jesus Christ, the hope of the world.

This afternoon, trust, hopes, as I said before, fraternal twin, trust. If you look at the money in this country, since 1956, the motto of this country by an act of Congress is what? In God we trust. So few actually do, so it's just sort of a platitude to many.

Here in the church, we who believe in God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we can truly say, in God we trust. And we can look with the psalmist upon those who trust in anything else or anyone else or any other concept that they may have.

Some trust in chariots, some in horses. Of course, the idea there is those are a hopeless trust. Those are a trust that will fade one day, even if they accomplish purposes for you at an immediate time.

Not every time. Not always. In God we trust. This hymn of trust is our topic this afternoon. A little background on hymn number, or psalm number 20. The king, which is David, David wrote this psalm, King David, he's about to write out against the enemies of his people, the enemies of Judah.

The first five verses have these seven entreaties to the Lord. They make no mention of the king's abilities, which were as legion as they were legendary, David having been a magnificent warrior and always successful.

But rather than mentioning how great a warrior he is or was, what is the call here? It's may the Lord, these seven times in the first five verses, this choir of people watching their king write out, beseeching the Lord God in whom they trust to give him success.

You see, wherever we go, whatever we do, whatever are our plans, wherever we are, this hymn of trust can guide our prayers. These people saw their king writing out to go and make them safe. To actually, in the Old Testament, verbiage would be to save the people, to save the people, which was the king of Judah's responsibility from all their reign, to save the people from their enemies.

You may recall a few weeks ago when we went through Psalm 91 and I told you how important it is to understand who's speaking when, which voice is being spoken at which part of the psalm, and then to be able to understand it a little better.

Well, in that psalm, there was three voices. There was a choir, there was a hero, and there was the Lord. In this psalm, there's only two. There's the people calling out these petitions to God on behalf of the king, and then there's a short answer from the king.

So just these two voices, and God never actually interjects into this psalm, though he is lauded and honored throughout it. So I want to go fairly quickly through this hymn of trust and these seven petitions, these seven requests that are made to the Lord by this choir of people watching their king ride out.

We can think of it as two rows of people and the army or the cavalry, whatever, riding between them and going out towards the enemy. And think of the people calling out these prayers to God, these requests, these beseeches, if you will, to the Lord God on behalf of him.

And this can become a guide to our prayers, as we consider in ourselves, whom do we trust? And when we pray to God, do we really trust that he hears? Prayer is, in fact, a matter of trust, it's a declaration of trust, because as I read from Hebrews 11 .6, when we pray, when we draw near to God, what must we believe, what must we trust?

That he is, that he exists, that he is there, and that he hears, and that he answers, and that he's good. This hymn of trust should redouble our efforts in prayer, should strengthen our trust in him, should show us what it means to pray with confidence, because the Lord God has answered and we can trust him to answer again.

The Day of Trouble and Christ's Intercession

Again, the first verse has two of these seven petitions. The first of them is, may the Lord answer you in the day of trouble. The day of trouble, probably Philistines or someone like that, that was the main enemy in David's day, making some kind of incursion, bringing Judah into some state of danger or alarm.

That's the day of trouble, may the Lord answer you. And there's people knowing that their king would go to the Lord and ask for success, so that he could save the people from their enemies. So may the Lord answer that prayer that you made, oh king, on our behalf, may the Lord answer you in this day of trouble.

You see, God's people are ever and always in a state of trial and tribulation or trouble. And that's according to Jesus' own word in Matthew, or excuse me, in John 16, verse 33, where he says, in this world you will have, what, delight and comfort and ease?

As God answers every request you make, because you love him, because you have faith in him, you trust him. So in this world, you can just be fat and happy, can't you? No, that's not what he says. In this world you will have what?

What will you have in this world? Trouble, tribulation, trial. In this world you will have trouble. And that's ever the state of the people of God, whether we take it from the Old Testament history of Israel, faithful Israel, or the church today.

Like I said, the trouble in Psalm 20, likely some incursion by the Philistines. And later on there were incursions and danger coming from the Assyrians, and thereafter that the Babylonians who conquered the Assyrians, always this thorn in the flesh of God's people to whom he had given the land.

They never quite took it all the way, but they always had trouble from the people of the land. The peoples of the land, the Canaanites, the Philistines, all the other ites that were in the land, constant trouble.

As the church today, because those old days were just a type of what we go through today. We today, believers in Christ Jesus, we face troubles as well. In this world you will have tribulation. We have tribulation because they hate our Lord, they hate his gospel, they hate the conviction of sin, the confession of sin, the repentance required, the confession to God and to man that I've done wrong, that I have sinned.

Jesus Christ saw this coming. Jesus Christ warns the church of it. He says, if the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. We may be the object of the hatred, but Jesus is the cause.

He who was born to bring hope by bringing salvation, he's hated. We born again to a living hope by the salvation that he brought, hated. This never ending day of trouble. May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble.

If that choir, if you will, those people calling out this to God on behalf of David as he rides out to his enemies, what Lord do we ask to answer for our sake? Well, it's none other than the Lord Jesus, who at this moment, according to Hebrews, is at the right hand of God, interceding on our behalf.

And can we not call out and say, Lord, this is a day of trouble and our King has ridden out on our behalf and conquered our enemies and is now at our right hand interceding or if you will, praying for us, Lord, answer our King Jesus' prayers on our behalf.

Because we are in a day of trouble, a day when the church is sidelined, ridiculed, where it's completely held in derogatory terms, where we see the moral structure around us collapsing, if not already collapsed and in a shambles.

And we, standing true on the Word of God, as best we with feet of clay are able, we standing against abortion, we standing for the truth of God, we worshiping Sunday in and Sunday out. A day of trouble and a never-ending call out to the Lord, God, Lord, answer our Savior Jesus as he intercedes on our behalf.

Just as you answered this people, as David wrote out, may he answer. May he answer. The second of the seven petitions, may he answer. We call out to our Lord, the risen Lord Jesus in our troubles. And in our psalm and Jesus' meaning in John, I quoted before, is especially those troubles that are directly because of our faith in him.

Whether yours is a quiet faith or of a more activist bent, the very name of Jesus, especially when it's raised in relation to human sin and its accountability, is enough to bring our Lord's words into our lives and excite our need to join Israel.

May the Lord answer in our day of trouble. May the Lord Jesus Christ intercede on our behalf and the Spirit come in extra measure and give us that strength and that confidence and renew our hope in him and magnify the trust that we have in God who hears and answers.

The Name of the God of Jacob and Help from the Sanctuary

May the name of the God of Jacob protect you. The name of the God of Jacob protect you. The name of the Lord, says the author of Proverbs, says Solomon, the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous man runs into it and is safe.

God revealed himself to Jacob, says the God of Jacob, but really means Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the patriarchs, if you will. He reveals himself to them as El Shaddai, almighty and all powerful. See, the name of the Lord is his very person.

His attributes that are conveyed by the definition to those names, those titles, they speak of his very person, who he is or what he does. Spurgeon said here, a sweeter wish or a more consolatory prayer for a child of sorrow was never uttered by man.

Why is that? I think he's right. But he's right because to faithfully invoke the name of God is to place yourself in the care of him, is to say to him, Psalm 91 verse 2, you are my refuge and my fortress.

Not just a platitude, not just nice words that make us feel better, that spark us for a moment, true words, literal words. He is my refuge and my fortress. May the name of the God of Jacob protect you.

Protect that king riding out to battle against other men with swords and shields and chariots and so forth. Protect him, Lord, because he goes out on our behalf. The next entreaty in verse 2, may he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion.

You know, the Hebrew here actually says help from his holy place. That's how sanctuary is translated from, for help from his holy place. Where God is, that place is holy. As he told Moses, take the shoes off your feet for the ground on which you stand is holy.

Well, it's just dirt like the dirt he had walked on to get to that place in front of the burning bishop in Exodus 3. Why was it holy? Because God was present. Why is this place holy? Because God is present.

Do you know that it is holy? I should have said first. Do you know that you are sitting and standing and worshiping on holy ground? Because God is with us. And it's a holy place. He sends help from his holy place in heaven and brings us to this holy place where we are now.

Where God is, that place is holy. He's in heaven from which every good and perfect gift comes down from him, the father of lights. May he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion.

We have that help. We have that support. Where is the sanctuary? It's where Jesus is, as we said a moment ago, interceding on our behalf. We pray to God. We ask him for help. When you ask him to strengthen us, to help our ministries keep moving in a way that glorifies his name, this is really what we're asking.

This third entreaty in Psalm 20, this hymn of trust. Send us help from the sanctuary, from your holy place, and give us support from where you are by your Holy Spirit. Fourth entreaty in verse 3. May he remember all your offerings and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices.

Selah. Now, selah means to pause. Selah in Hebrew poetry means just stop for a moment. Consider what you just read. Consider what you just said. Let this truth sink in. As Jesus said to the disciples, let these words sink into your ears.

And then he explained how the son of man was going to go to Jerusalem and be abused by the high priests and be crucified, and on the third day he would rise up. Selah. Stop and think about that for a moment.

May he remember all your offerings and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices. You see, the king would go and offer sacrifices on his own behalf in the temple and according to temple protocols. The people here are asking God to remember those sacrifices that the king, for his own sake, so that he could work for their sake, had offered to God.

Not implying here, may he remember, they're not saying God could forget, pardon me, or that God needs a reminder. You see, the odor of the faithful sacrifices is to the Lord God a sweet and soothing aroma, one that wafts up before his altar in heaven and stays there.

It's a beautiful picture if we think of that aroma coming up that soothes God's anger at our sin. You first read of it in Genesis 9, when Noah, after the flood, receded and made that sacrifice, a burnt offering, and it was a pleasing, a soothing aroma to God.

They say, may he remember all your sacrifices. Lord God, remember our king has come to you in faith and given sacrifices on his behalf so that he can work on our behalf. You see, the incenses burned in the earthly temple reminded the people the sweetness of God's presence, but it dissipated.

It finally went away. When the tabernacle was disassembled and packed for the next leg of their journey in the wilderness, the smell was gone. Or in the temple, Solomon's temple, when the doors of the temple were opened, the first draft would blow that away.

But in heaven, these prayers that are spoken on behalf of the people, these prayers that you make, just individuals like you and myself, it says in Revelation, they are a memorial before the altar of God.

They are there now. God doesn't forget them. God doesn't stop seeing them. And in Jesus Christ, neither does he stop answering our prayers. You see, our trust in prayer is not prayer itself, but our assurance, our trust in what the verse pleads, God's favor on our offering.

Must come to God with an offering. Must you not? What is our offering? Only this, our faith in God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the offering of all offerings. He's the culmination. He is the purpose.

He is the goal. He is the sum. He is the divinely ordained reason for all the sacrifices that were ever made faithfully in the temple and the old dispensation. We come with that sacrifice, not bringing a physical animal to be slaughtered at the altar, but our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, who offered himself for us.

It is he, Hebrews 9, 14, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God and he purifies our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. So if we were to join this people in this hymn of trust, may he remember all your offerings and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices.

Your offering, your sacrifice is Jesus Christ. And does God remember Jesus Christ? Of course he does. And he sits at his right hand even now. The fifth petition, the fifth petition is in verse four. May he grant you your heart's desire to fulfill all your plans.

Heart's Desire, Bold Prayer, and Trusting God's Answer

The king's desire was for victory over his enemies and peace in the land, all to God's glory, all to his honor. And you see, when our hearts align with God's, Jesus says that anything we ask him, he will do.

Anything you ask in my name, he told the disciples and he really told the church. Anything you ask in my name, that I will do. The Father will grant when we pray to him with faith. Do you trust this? I've called this a hymn of trust.

Trust will come up in one of the last verses where he says, some trust in chariots, some trust in horses. Do you trust that when you go to God with your heart aligned, as best our heart in this world can be aligned with God, but as our hearts align with God, our hearts filled with desire for him, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Delight in him first and then he gives. Align your heart with God's and your desires with his word and then he gives. Do you trust this? It's a difficult thing, if we were to admit it, to truly trust that, to not pray out of simple habit, out of tradition, just because we're here and we call this a prayer meeting.

May he grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans. Delight in him, rejoice in his salvation, do all to the glory of God and then he gives the delight of our heart. And again, thinking of the Lord Jesus Christ, interceding for us even now on our behalf, does he delight himself in the Lord?

He is the Lord, but he delights himself in doing God's will. He delights himself to build up this church. He said, and I will build my church, even through our efforts. Will he not grant Christ's desire?

Will Christ not build his church? Yes, he certainly will. The sixth petition, may we shout for joy over your salvation and in the name of our God, set up our banners. I ask, do you pray with hope? Do you pray with hope, the sort of hope that Pastor Brian preached this morning?

A hope so expectant of God's favorable reply that is wed to trust? A hope that is so trusting in God that hope and trust could be interchanged? This people back then anticipated just that. Victory for the king, glory for God.

And I ask, so we're going to pray in just a few moments. Do you pray this way? Do you pray ready to shout with joy over the answer that God gives? Shout with joy over the salvation that he's effected in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Are you almost trembling with excitement because you know you've prayed for that which will glorify our Lord? Because you know his answer will cause you to fairly bellow with joy, this shout for joy in the fifth verse of Psalm 20.

So I say to you, I repeat what I think Pastor Brian said just a few weeks ago from Luke. Pray big, church. Pray big. Pray big prayers that require faith. Pray big prayers that if God should answer, only he could have answered.

Pray big prayers because we want to shout for joy over our salvation. We want to say because Christ has saved us, because God loves those who are in his son, because God has regard for those who love Jesus Christ, we're going to pray big impossible things for with God, nothing, said the Lord Jesus Christ, shall be impossible.

Shout for joy over your salvation when you pray. And pray big, trusting our God. Trust him to hear and trust him to answer. Not these small prayers that you or I could have effected the answer. Not even big, big prayers to take the best surgeon in the country or in the whole world to effect a cure.

I mean, let's pray big prayers. Prayers for salvation. Prayers for the Holy Spirit like a fire to sweep through the land. Prayer for people at the highest levels of our government to be converted to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Those kind of prayers. We pray for our children. We pray for our families. We pray for the continuity of this church to continue to proclaim the gospel. Big prayers that we shout for joy over our salvation, that we exult in the Lord God.

The King's Confidence and the Faith-Building Power of Prayer

Seventh, may the Lord fulfill all your petitions. Here's a trust, is it not? A trust that the petitions that this king has made are to be fulfilled to the benefit of those who are singing this song to him as he rides out.

And again, the Lord Jesus Christ sitting at the right hand of God interceding for us. Who's he interceding for? I think there's barely a dozen of us in here this afternoon. He's interceding this moment for you and for me and for us together.

It's the Lord Jesus Christ petitioning God as it were on our behalf right now. And here's a prayer of trust. It's Lord, we're in your hands. And whatever Jesus Christ is asking for, we know is good and right and perfect and just and holy because he is perfect and right and just and holy.

And so with confident trust that Jesus Christ would only do that which is good for us, which is mainly to glorify himself through us. We can go to God in prayer, trusting him and say fulfill all these petitions, even if we don't know them all.

Even if we don't know word for word what Jesus is interceding, we can trust that what he intercedes, what he prays, what he petitions on our behalf is for our good and for his glory. You know, when pastors Brian Conley and myself meet on Wednesdays, that's our weekly pastors meeting, we consistently pray that we don't have a liturgy of words.

We don't say the same thing every time, but we do pray, Lord, this is our petition to you. We wish these plans, these thoughts, these programs, whatever we're doing, to be for the glory of Christ and for the good of the people whom we serve by serving Christ as your pastors.

We pray this every time. You could pray for us. You could pray, Lord, fulfill our pastor's petitions. Fulfill what they pray on our behalf because we trust that they commissioned by you to serve us as pastors are asking that which is for our good, primarily Jesus's glory, but our good in jobs, our good in health, our good in our family relationships, our good in seeing our children saved.

You can pray this prayer for us every Wednesday, every day really, but we meet on Wednesdays at nine o 'clock. That's an unapologetic dig. Pray for us on Wednesdays at nine o 'clock. Pray for God to fulfill our petitions.

Trust that our petitions to God are for the good of this people, meaning you. The ultimate meaning of this verse, the ultimate meaning is, of course, Jesus Christ, who's at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us, and those petitions will certainly be fulfilled.

And here the people sort of take a breath. And in verse six, the king with his confidence bolstered by hearing the prayers and these requests of the people to God on his behalf, he finally responds. And he says, now I know that the Lord saves his anointed, meaning himself.

He will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand. Do you ever think that when you pray, you're building up each other's faith? I want you to imagine King David, maybe a little trepidation about going out and into battle where he may die, and many will certainly die.

Do you ever think that when you pray, you're increasing that person who is hearing you pray and who's going to pray with you after you pray as we go into small groups, that you're really building up each other's faith and confidence and trust in the Lord?

The king's about to risk his life in limb against human enemies. And now having heard the trusting petitions of the people who will benefit from his success, he's strengthened, his courage is bolstered, his confidence reaches new heights, and he's reminded by the people's faithful, trusting God that the Lord is his strength, the Lord is his confidence.

And when you and I hear each other pray, this is what it does for each other, to hear you faithfully pray and ask these big things of God, these impossible things of God, and then I'm going to top you.

I'm going to get more impossible than you. And then the next one, our little prayer circle, I can top that. I can see God is bigger. And on it goes. And our confidence, not to get silly, not to ask ridiculous things, all in accordance with his word, but we increase each other's faith.

We bolster each other. We edify one another. We build one another up in the image of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what prayer should do. When we hear each other pray as our petitions are voiced, the confidence in our little circle should grow like a mighty wind that howls the louder as each voice is encouraged by the voices that came before.

Trusting in the Name of the Lord and Christ's Victory over Death

And what do you trust? Do you trust in the God to whom we pray? People trust in many things. They trust in their abilities, their bank accounts, the government, the welfare they receive. They trust in the structure of the world, the military.

People trust in many things. Excuse me. Verse 7 says, some trust in chariots and some in horses, which is to say some trust in their armies, some trust in their abilities, some trust in all these other things, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

Trust here is the Hebrew word zakar, which means to remember. We remember the name of the Lord our God. We see them trusting in chariots and horses and whatever it is in this world that they put their hope in, that they put their trust in.

What do we trust in? The name of the Lord our God is to be remembered. So we pray at the end, we say, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, or in your name, or words to that effect, excuse me again, trust in the Lord if it is trusted also believing trust.

This is trust that enlivens the heart with confidence and confidently renounces all else. Oh Lord, save the king, may he answer us when we call. Oh Lord, may I have been smart enough to get a bottle of water up here.

Excuse me. It says, oh Lord, save the king, may he answer us when we call. I just want to end with the Lord Jesus Christ again. It says in the book of Hebrews that in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death and he was heard because of his reverence.

Now, some people might hear this verse and say, well, God didn't answer that prayer. God didn't save Jesus from death. He cried out with tears and with supplication. He was sweating as drops of blood, says Luke in his Gospel of Luke.

He didn't save him from death. Jesus died on the cross. Your faith is based on the fact that he died on the cross. Yes, that's true. And Jesus cried out to him who was able to save him from death and God did.

By the resurrection, God heard his voice and lifted him up from the grave on the third day. You see, the Roman tree was the death of him, but God did save him from death. I wasn't hinting, but that was good, thank you.

Jesus Christ did, in fact, die on the cross, but God did save him from death on the third day by raising him up and he's now at God's right hand. Because of your prayers, the brothers and sisters who hear can say, now I know that God who raised up Jesus from the dead has raised me up and hears me now because of his son Jesus Christ.

So we're going to go to prayer in just a moment. I call you to trust in the Lord and if it's trust at all, it's a full and believing trust that God hears and answers. It's a trust that enlivens the heart with confidence and confidently renounces all else.

We trust, some trust in chariots, some trust in horses. We remember the name of the Lord our God. Remember that Jesus called out in his day of trouble at Gethsemane and God saved the king by the resurrection and Jesus and God answers us when we call just as he answered Jesus by lifting him up and raising him from the dead.

This hymn of trust, let it be our guide as we go to God in prayer even this afternoon. Amen.