Our God, In Whom We Trust

Psalm 91 as a Four-Part Series and the Reading of the Whole Psalm

But please turn to Psalm 91 and rather than just the first two verses which was our call to worship, I'll read the entire psalm. And this afternoon, Lord willing, we'll finish this four-part series in the psalm with verses 14 through 16.

But if you have that, please stand as we read Psalm 91. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I'll say to the Lord my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.

For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and buckler.

You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.

You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked. Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place, the Most High, who is my refuge, no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent.

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.

Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him. I will protect him because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him.

With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation. God bless the reading and now the proclamation of his word. Please be seated. So these final three verses, verses 14 through 16, because he holds fast to me in love and so forth, which we just read, in these three verses what do we find?

God Affirming the Praise of His People

What we find is God affirming through the priest, through a prophet, perhaps the voice from heaven, but it is God himself, God who is called Elion, the Most High, God who is called Shaddai, the Almighty, God who is Yahweh, God who is Elohim, the God of this psalm, the God of the universe, answering and affirming all the praise that he is received here.

Where this group that I call the choir, the one that talks about God in the third person, he will do this, he will do that, as they assured the one I call the hero, the one going preparing to go out on some great venture, they assure him of God's constant attention to his needs.

And the hero answers back, says, yes, this is the God in whom I do trust, in whom I will trust, my God in whom I trust, Elion, God Most High, Shaddai, God Almighty. He is my God, says our hero, says this one riding out.

He is all that the choir has proclaimed him to be. He, God, is everything that the hero needed. He, God, in Jesus Christ, is all that we need. As we ride out, when we leave this place and go out into the world and strive to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, and strive and grasp after the holiness of God that was shown to us in Christ Jesus, we need to rely upon this God in whom the psalmist trusts, my God in whom we trust, as we go forth.

These three verses, verses 14 through 16, they say something on the whole, and each of these pieces contributes to that whole. You see, our God protects and delivers his people in Christ Jesus. He has protected and delivered you from your sin, and in Christ Jesus, and by the power of his Spirit, he continues to deliver and continues to protect his people.

See, our God protects and he delivers in this life and in the life to come. In verse 14, we find his help to be enduring. In verse 15, his help is effective, and in verse 16, his help is eternal. I didn't try to come up with an alliteration.

It just came up separately, and I looked and said, oh, I finally found some alliteration. Three E's, which I don't normally do anything like that, but his help is enduring. As this one holds fast to the Lord in an enduring way, the help God gives him is equally and more so enduring.

His help is effective, meeting the need of the moment, and his help is eternal in this life and it will continue into the next. Verse 14, because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him. I will protect him because he knows my name.

His help endures. This verse is really a little bit more complicated than it might seem at first glance, because on the outside, we have two clauses, both with this because, this idea of causation. Because he did this, I will do that, and I will do this because he does this other thing.

Because he holds fast, I will deliver, and I will protect him because he knows my name. Because of this, then that. And then there's this description of the actions prompted by those two becauses. So it's because this one is found to be of this disposition, therefore I will do this other thing.

And the believers can open those two halves up, these two because on the outside, and open up, if you will, like some sort of a clam, and what do we find inside? We find a pearl of great price, which is God's deliverance and God's protection of us.

So we need to describe him first, and then see the prize that the Lord graciously bestows. And who is the him? The him is the one who is the subject of those two because clauses, the one who holds fast, and the one who knows God's name.

Well, the one who holds fast is the who holds fast in love. And it's really just one word, because he holds fast to me in love. Now, and he's the one who also as well knows the Lord's name. In Hebrew, as in Greek, as in our English, you know, there's levels and there's shades of knowing.

We're actually going to talk about knowing the Lord's name before we go back to holding fast in love. But I want us to understand this idea of knowing God by knowing his name, where he says I'll protect him because he knows my name.

In all the languages I just mentioned, Hebrew, Greek, English, there are shades, are there not, of knowing. We can know something, we can know someone by name, we can know their face, we can recognize them without really, in another sense of it, if you don't, you could know them that way, but you don't really know them.

And by that emphasis on the second time I use know, you know what I mean? Know them intimately, know them as a friend, know them the way a husband knows a wife, and a wife the husband. Say, oh yeah, I know that guy.

I mean that with no insult, nothing wrong with saying that, you know what I mean. I know who he is, I know his name, I know he lives in the neighborhood, that sort of thing. Not the sort of know that is meant here, not just knowing a subject like accounting or mathematics or something.

You know, I thought if we saw the President of the United States walking down the street, let's say it was President Biden, the current President, I think every one of us would look and say, oh I know him.

Of course we do. We see his picture all the time, we know who he is, and a number of people, actors and musicians, stuff like that, we would know them right away. But again, we don't know them. In the Hebrew, to know is the word yada, and that's a word that's often used, even as we do in English, of the intimacy of a husband and wife.

It's this deep knowledge that doesn't just know them in that intimate way, more than that, someone who revels in learning more and more and more about that person. Diving deeper into that person in that way, in that relational way.

Loving them so much that you just can't get enough of them, and you want to know what makes them sad, what makes them angry, what are their likes and dislikes, what would make them glad, what would make them rejoice.

It's a thirst to penetrate more and more into them and their person, to find out if we can use the common language, what makes them tick. And to love to know that, so we can please them more and more by knowing them.

And because of that deep intimacy, be pleased ourselves as we learn more and more about them. And fastened to this idea is he knows my name. Now again, if we saw the president walking down the street, who is that?

Well, that's Joe Biden. We know his name. Is that what is meant here? No, it's much more than that. It's a part of that intimacy, part of that depth of relationship. The Lord spoke to Moses in this way in Exodus 33 17.

He said, I know you by name. In Deuteronomy 34 10, he says, and there has not risen since in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. The Lord knew his name and Moses knew the Lord's name.

Intimate relationship, committed relationship, a desire to know and to please this one more and more and more. And not God pleasing us more and more, of course, in this sense. It's us knowing God and wanting to please him more and more.

What do we know? What are we to know? What does God say of this one who he says he will protect? I will protect him. Why? Because he knows my name. Now we've worked over the four names of God that we have here in the psalm.

Elion, the Most High, Shaddai, Almighty, Yahweh, the Lord, Elohim, God, the Creator. But to know God's name and all the titles associated with God or with those names is to have a lot of knowledge. It would be to have a lot of good knowledge.

And you can go through your Bible, you can probably find entire commentaries just on the names of God. And you can find them all. You can study and see where they were used in history, when they came about, what's the meaning behind them, what's the etymology of the name, where did it come from, what were other Akkadian gods like that and use similar terms.

You can find out all kinds of facts. Good knowledge. But only knowledge. Perhaps knowledge that is risky. In the way the Apostle Paul says, this kind of knowledge only puffs up. It only expands the capacity of your inventory of factoids.

But is that what it means to know God by name? I will protect him because he knows my name. Let me suggest to you that knowing God's names and studying God's names, just the way I said, is a very good thing because they are God's names.

Some people like to think of them as titles, whatever the case. Names are titles of God that come into history because they meant something in that time. So study them. Yes, study them. But here's a way to know God's name, the way it's meant in the psalm here.

Incorporate that name into your history. Know when it came about in Israel's history, for example. Study that, think about that, but then incorporate it into your own. Think of it this way. Elohi, my God, my Elohim.

Elohim is the first name of God we find in the scripture. In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth. We could study Elohim quite a bit. It could be a very productive study. But think of Elohim, think of Elohi as my God, the way the psalmist did here in Psalm 91, and then think this way.

Well, I want to know God by name. I will protect him because he knows my name. Elohim is the creator. Second Corinthians 5 .17 says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Elohim created everything by his word as he did you in Christ by the power of that same creating word.

The apostle James puts it this way of his own will. He brought us forth by the word of truth. Thank you, Father Elohim, for creating me new in Christ your son. I will protect him because he knows my name.

I will watch over her because she knows my name and has taken that name that I've given in scripture and seen it in their own history. He is Yahweh Nisi, the Lord my banner. We find this in Numbers chapter 21 when the serpents were sent and they bit the Israelites and they were dying of it.

And Moses, by the command of God, raised the bronze serpent. Anyone who looked upon that banner, that Nisi, was healed. He is Yahweh Nisi so we could study the history. And we could say, okay, he's the God who when we looked upon him, when they looked upon him, he healed them.

Well, Jesus healed lepers and lame and blind so that you could know that the healing of your sin. So how do we incorporate this into our history? Know God's name this way. I thank you, Yahweh Nisi, that when I looked to Jesus, my banner, you forgave my sins.

I thank you, Lord, in my own history that for Christ's sake you healed me of the flu, my broken arm, my cancer, my COVID, all the healings that many of us have known in this place. Some of them miraculous beyond description.

I think this is what it means when he says, I will protect him because he knows my name. Not just the definition of the name, but that name, that title as it came into history and understanding that context and say, well, that's Jesus.

Jesus is my banner. Jesus is the one I look to and I'm healed of my sin. He's Elohim creator. He's the one who recreated me in Christ Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for incorporating that into my own personal history.

Study his name, know his name. Think of how his name was brought into your personal life and it's stay in his name. Jesus spoke of God's name this way. Jesus said, holy father, keep them in your name, which you have given me that they may be one even as we are one.

While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. See, God protects because of knowing his name. Doesn't mean you deserve protection just because you studied it out and you can give all the definitions.

It's knowing that name and the God who is that name and what each of those versions in history mean to me personally in Christ Jesus, who's the sum and total of them all. The first clause, because he holds fast to me in love.

We worked on the second one. I will protect him because he knows my name. Now we start with the first one, because he holds fast to me in love. To hold fast is used in Exodus 27 to describe what our ESV calls filets of silver.

You think of a filet as a sliced piece of fish. It's a filet, a filet of fish. But in here, it means the base into which the pillars of the tabernacle were set. They were kept in position by staying attached to their base.

In our psalm, it means to be a love that is bound to its object, the way the pillars were bound to the filets. They held fast to them. It's the same word we have, because he holds fast to me in love. A deep attachment to an object of desire that dominates everything, informs every decision, invades every thought.

Do you remember a young prince that we come across in Exodus or in Genesis 34? A young prince named Shechem who falls in love with Dinah and he's so holding fast to Dinah, he is so enraptured with Dinah, he so wants her to be his wife, that he had himself and all his townspeople circumcised in order to meet Jacob's demands for this relationship to continue.

The same word, he held fast to her in love. It's this dominating idea, this dominating thought that all I want is to be with this one. I need to hold fast to this one. We could even think of Jacob in Genesis 32.

Do you remember when the man came and wrestled with him all night? And he says, you need to let me go, the sun's coming up, it's time to go. And Jacob hangs on and says, I will not let you go unless you bless me.

Now the word's not the same, but the concept is the same, because he holds fast to me in love. What is to hold fast to God? What does it mean to hold fast to him? It means to know his word. It means to strive for the things that he tells us in his word to strive for.

Strive for holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Strive to be perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect. Strive for the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed to you by faith. It is your righteousness.

Strive all the more to be righteous. This is what it means to hold fast to him in love, to love God, to love his word, to love his son, to love what he has done for you. Everything about God, God is love.

Hold fast to him in love. Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him. This word, holding fast, use of God's attachment to his people in Deuteronomy 7, 7 and 10, 15. In Isaiah 38, chapter 38, verse 1, in love, there's our word, holding fast in love, in love you have delivered me from the pit of destruction.

And here's the deliverance. Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him. So you have delivered me from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back. How are we delivered?

By holding fast to God. Is it because my grip is good, and I'm working hard, and I'm doing many good deeds, and therefore I deserve this deliverance? No. It's because of the person to whom you're attached.

It's because of the person to whom you're hanging on to. It's because once you're attached to God in this way, like Jacob holding on to the angel's ankle, not letting go, you're going to go where he goes.

Or better said, you're going to go where he leads you. Which is, as I said, into holiness, into righteousness, and so forth. Jesus Christ delivered us from our sins by the cross. And in this life, he delivers us from our sins, into growth and sanctification, growth and holiness, coming closer and closer always to the image of Christ.

In the middle of these two halves. Because he holds fast, and won't let go of me, because he holds fast to me in love, and knows my name, I will deliver him, I will protect him. And deliver is used mostly in the psalms, with the psalmist pleading for deliverance, or for a way of escape from some peril, from some harmful falsehood, or plotting against him.

It can mean escape, which corresponds for us to 1 Corinthians 10 13, where the Lord makes a way of escape, so we can bear up under the temptations. But only in Psalm 91 14, only here is God the subject of that verb, of deliver.

In every other case, it's the psalmist crying out and saying, deliver me, I need deliverance. Oh Lord, my deliverer, deliver me, and that sort of thing. And here, God acts as the agent of the verb. Only here, for the one who holds fast in love, and knows his name, does God explicitly confirm that he will take up the cause.

He will protect, he will set on high, above the pestilence, above the evil. He will bring you up on high, above the pestilence and evil of this day. He, by his spirit, will give you the wherewithal, and the desire to not, and then we just fill in the blank.

Pastor Brian had more time in the morning, he could make more of a list than I have time for. But he gives you that strength, and that desire to be with him, holding fast to him in love, so that when he delivers you, he delivers you from that temptation that came, and so that I will not, and then let's just fill in our own blanks.

You can think about those yourself. He sets you on high, above that cesspool, as by his spirit he protects you from encroaching evil. Seated now with Christ in the heavenlies. Isn't that what Ephesians 2, 6 says?

He's seated you in the heavenlies, he's raised you up with Christ. You're above all that mess. You're above all that quagmire. He's given deliverance already by the cross of Jesus Christ. And what do we do?

What's our duty? What's the gospel duty? To hold fast in love to him, because he's there, and this is where we're seated. As we hold fast to him, our sights are set downward, and we look upon this from the heavenly perspective.

And what do we desire then? Looking where we're seated now, Ephesians 2, 6. Same verse, Ephesians 2, 6, where we've been raised to. From their look down upon this, you've been delivered from your sin, you are being delivered from your sin.

Hold fast to Christ in love. Know his name, and study it, and bring it into your own personal history. We go on, when he calls to me, I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him.

Prayer, Presence, and Honor in Trouble

His help is effective. It meets the need of the moment. To call to him, when he calls to me, what is that? That is to pray. And to whom do we call? Do we call to a God who's just out there? A God who we need for the moment?

A force that's out there at your beck and call upon the emergency that comes up now and then? No. No, it's this God who you enduringly have hung on to. This God whose name is part of your life. When he, when this one calls to me, I'll answer him.

This one you know. Have you ever heard of a whatchamacallit? Whatchamacallit? Not very many hands. You know, it's in Merriam-Webster's dictionary. It really is. I always thought it was just a slang term, but it's really there.

It's something that is hard to classify or whose name is unknown or forgotten. A whatchamacallit? A thingamajig? A hootamawig? Who was that sort of a thing? That oddball tool you needed years back for that oddball repair and now buried deep and forgotten in a drawer toolbox.

And if you happened upon it, you'd say, what on earth is this thing? Why did I buy it? How much did I spend for it? What does it even do? And then a dripping faucet reminds you that this tool fits that little thing that will tighten up the washer or allow you to change it.

Or a special process for that gourmet dish that you made for that special occasion. Where or where is my whatchamacallit, my thingamajig now when I need it? Both those words are in Merriam-Webster's dictionary.

You see, God is no whatchamacallit or thingamajig to be dusted off and put to use now and then. He says he will answer, and he says he will answer by his presence. Who is it who is answering? Go up a verse.

This one you hold fast to. This one whose name you know. Not just like, oh my goodness, I'm tempted to do this thing. Or I have this emergency has come up. This spiritual crisis that has arisen. Okay, where am I going to go?

Who am I going to call? Which name do I need to call God upon? No. Someone who you've held on to in an enduring way. Someone whose name you know and has been incorporated into you. When this one calls to me, I will answer him.

One who knows him. Who knows him by name. And he, like he said to Moses, I know you by name. Not a whatchamacallit, not a thingamajig. Not something we have to open the drawer and get all the other stuff out of the way because it's been in there for so long.

I would ask, when he says I will answer him, I will be with him in trouble. Well, of course, when we're in trouble, when we call out to the Lord. But let me ask you this. Would you know when the Lord God is with you?

Would you, would you recognize his presence and his leading with you? Long disuse of the means of grace, Bible study, and prayer, and the fellowship of the saints. Long disuse makes his presence hard to recognize, if recognizable at all.

The Lord becomes that sort of President Biden. Well, I see him on the street and I recognize the face because I've seen on the news so many times. I know who he is. I know what he does. I appreciate his office and so forth.

But do you know him? Hebrews 5 14 speaks of those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice, practice to distinguish good from evil. Those who will fast and love and know his name, who by holding fast through prayer and knowledge of him by and through his word and scripture.

That's what I think is described here. And there's another important word. I will honor him. I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and I will honor him. Honor is from the Greek word kavod. It can mean a weighty person, that man or woman of dignity, that person who comes in whose very presence sort of fills the room.

Have you ever known anybody like that? Someone who you just know somebody had just walked in. You can almost feel it. It's sort of like the way I like to think of Lawrence Olivier, the great actor, the late British actor who he could just fill the screen by his presence.

He was such a great actor. He was, in that sense, as an actor, he was kavod. He had that weightiness to him. The word also means glory. It also means glory. Glory being God's most cherished and most protected nature.

He says through the prophet Isaiah, my glory I will not give to another. He meant idols. He will not give his glory to anything else. His glory is seen in the heavens, is it not? The heavens declare the glory of God, says the psalmist.

Everything about all that he made shows forth his glory and that glory is his and it is his alone. But here what does it say? Only here in Psalm 91 15 does the Lord ever say he will honor in any way a mere man.

It says here he will definitely honor him, glory him if you will. You know it's not his personal unmatched glory that he gives to us or to you when he rescues you and delivers you. He gets all the glory for that.

He is glorified in all his works, but in that rescue, that vindication that we have, vindicating the word of God and showing the word of God is true and that his rescue is real and literal, then we have in that way been glorified.

Not God's full unmatchable glory, but an analogous kind of glory, a communicable part of his communicable nature that he gives. I will honor him. Jesus said in John 17 22 along this very same line, he says the glory you have given me, I've given to them.

Now I can't say with complete biblical authority that God absolutely will not answer the prayer that is called out to a useful nut that rarely is used for him. You need that whatchamacallit. I can't say that he's going to say, well you haven't called on me yesterday, you weren't there for me last year, I don't know you, you don't know me, and so forth.

I cannot say that, but I can say this word of God in Psalm 91 that he promises to answer the one who holds fast to him in love and knows his name. He says he will be with you in trouble. Trouble will come as our Lord said, in this world you will have tribulation, but take heart I've overcome the world.

So trouble will come. What is your first response to trouble? Too often is to assess the issue and then develop a plan to resolve it. Maybe you'll see how much money is available or whether another job is needed or one less would do the job better.

Our plans come together, it looks good, pluses and minors are listed out and compared to one another and my wife has agreed and off we go. Our troubles will soon be over. Oh right, I forgot something.

Hey honey, go find that whatchamacallit, will you? You know the one we needed for emergency a while back? I forget where it is, but it's around. You see where this goes, don't you? We take our plan, we hold it up to the divine thingamabob, a kissing cousin to the whatchamacallit, this hard to classify thing and we say oh Lord, you who I've occasioned now to consult, please take this plan which I've devised and bless it.

And please forget not each jot and tittle in the plan. You know if you speak to God only rarely, if your trust is only on special occasions or for special needs, if you don't know him personally, intimately, how will you know his presence?

This is when he calls, I will answer and I will be with him in trouble. First you have to call and you have to know, going up one more verse, who it is you're calling to. And then you have to know this God well enough, you have to hold fast to him in love and in an enduring enough way that when he's with you, you recognize him, you know him, you say this is God by his spirit leading me in this or that direction, showing me this or that in his word that I might know him better.

If you speak to him only rarely, how would you know? If you don't know this God, how can you call out to him and how would you recognize his presence when he comes to you? The final verse says, I will satisfy him with long life and show him my salvation.

Long Life, Salvation, and Christ as the Yes and Amen

This help is eternal. The verse speaks of life in two ways, long life on this earth and eternal life. So I would ask you this, what is a satisfied and eternal long life? The promise is here, I'll satisfy him, this one who holds fast to me in love, this one who knows my name, this one who calls out to me in prayer.

Yes, I'll satisfy that one with long life and show him my salvation. What is a satisfactory long life? Well, the first part of the answer is to be satisfied with the days he gives you, to know God well and intimately enough to trust him that whatever days he gives, it is he who gives them to you, and he does all things well, and the judge of all the earth can only do what is right.

Some live amazingly long lives, like my grandpa Lou, who lived to 102, which I still find amazing. I know it's not a record, but anything close to a century sort of surprises me. Other lives are tragically short, like those children we hear about who die so young of cancer and the like.

What's a long life? Well, I would suggest to you, long life in this context is a life lived to God. Long life in this context is a life lived every day, stepping in line with the Spirit of God to glorify Christ Jesus.

A long life is not just the days that God gave you, but to use the days God gave you to his glory, to be useful for his kingdom, however many days or years that would be. We had a few days ago a plumber come to our house to help with a clogged sink, and it was a clog way, way down the pipe, so we really did need a professional, but I got to talking to him.

I've known this guy for a while. He's sort of my go-to guy. His son, I've forgotten his name, but he had just died at the age of 45 of COVID, and as we talked about it, and he sat and he talked for quite a long while, I found that his son had a heritage of other sons, and his sons were involved in community.

They were coaches at their schools. They were doing things in community service to help youth stay out of gangs and such like that, and at his funeral, the many people came and gave testimony to how this young man had affected their life and kept them from gangs and showed them that they could get better grades in school and go on to college and such like that.

I would say that this is sort of the long, satisfying life that the psalmist speaks of, and what's a long life? Enoch was 365 years old when God took him. He walked with God. Moses was 120 years old when he was taken to Mount Nebo and shown the Holy Land, said, well, you're not going to go there.

You're going to die, and God took him. It's to live whatever days we have, though. This is a long life, whatever days we have, not knowing how many there would be, but living them all, holding fast to the Lord God in love and knowing him more and more by his name.

A long life is a life lived to God's glory, however long, like Enoch, or short it might be. Psalm 90, verse 12 says, teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom, wisdom that trusts alone in God.

Psalm 139, verse 16 says, your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was not one of them. So how many years would satisfy?

There was a man who led what many might think of as a very short life, like those athletic men and women in the 20s and 30s who died of COVID recently. The man I'm thinking of, his age at death would seem a tragedy.

He lived not nearly as long as Enoch or Methuselah. I'm almost 70 years old, just a few years away from 70. He lived half as long as me. I speak of Jesus Christ, who at about 33 and a half years old, pretty young by our standards, is it not?

If we read of a 33 and a half year old gold medal track and field star dying at 33 and a half, we think that's a tragedy. Jesus was 33 and a half and his death was a tragedy. Praise God, his death was efficacious to our salvation and is the only chart to our salvation.

Who would argue that Jesus Christ's life was not a satisfying life, was not a life lived to God's glory, was not a productive life? No, I was satisfying with long life. It's just a life lived to God's glory, however many days that may be.