Good morning. Good morning. Turn in your Bibles to Psalm
20, please. Angus is away. And as a body, we miss him. And I'm sure he misses us. But
it's because God's worked love in our hearts for one another.
He's worked His love in our hearts. You can read more about it in
1 John. In John 13, we're commanded to
love one another as Christ loved us. He says, little children,
yet a little while I am with you, you shall seek me. And as I said to the Jews, whither
I go, you cannot come. So now I say to you, a new commandment
I give you, that you love one another. As I have loved you,
that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that
ye are my disciples, if you have love one for another. Now Angus is obviously going
to say more on this when we get to John 13. But the Lord's about
to return to heaven as our advocate and as our king. And he wasn't
going to be there to minister to his disciples personally. We know that the Lord in John
14 promised that his Holy Spirit would come and indwell us. But
here in John 13, he's telling us how he'll also minister to
us by working amongst us, by working in our midst, by working
in our relationships with each other. Our great God grows a
very real love in our hearts for one another. It's a promise. And through that love, he ministers
to each of his chosen children. Now, it says to love each other
as he loves us, and there's no way we could ever love to the
same magnitude as our Lord loves us. He loves us infinitely. But
what it's talking about is loving in the same way, to love by the
same nature. We love each other by forgiving
one another, don't we, as the Lord forgave us. And forgiveness
means sacrifice. There's always a cost. We also
love each other by speaking the truth to one another, by caring
for one another, by comforting each other with the same comfort
we received from Christ. We love by gospel encouragement
in our witness to each other. And most of all, and Lord willing,
this is our message today, we love through prayer. We love by bringing each other
and our many and varied trials before our merciful God in love
toward one another. James 5 tells us that the effectual,
fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Who's a righteous
man? All the saints of God are righteous
in Christ Jesus their Saviour. So that's what I hope the Lord
will talk to us about today. This is the psalm of David. It's
a psalm to the chief musician. It's a psalm to be sung by the
people appealing to our gracious God for the king's protection
and for his victory against the enemies of Israel. And we need
to remember that David's victory was also Israel's victory. just as the victory of our great
King is our victory. See, more importantly, we need
to remember that David first represents our Saviour, our Lord
Jesus Christ. All the scriptures speak of Him. So in that sense, we can see
this as a prayer first and foremost, of the Church throughout the
ages, a prayer for the success of our Saviour at the cross,
as he represents all the children given to him in eternity, as
he purges us of our sin and justifies us in the presence of our God
for all eternity. as he enters into the Holy of
Holies as our great forerunner. See, our Lord is that carpenter
that hung on the cross 2,000 years ago, but he's always been
our great eternal advocate. He's that lamb slain from the
foundation of the world in Revelation 13. The central figure in that whole
heavenly scene in Revelation 5, the one looked to by all,
the one receiving the praises of all his people, it's a lamb. It's a lamb as it had been slain. It's a lamb in the midst of the
throne and of the four beasts and in the midst of the elders. It's our Saviour presenting His
wounds, wounds which justify His precious Bride, the Church,
presenting Her spotless in the eyes of our all-seeing God eternally. See, David in the Scriptures
also represents the Church. So we can also see this as a
united prayer for the continued success of our great advocate
before our Father in heaven regarding all our petitions to him. We can see it as a prayer for
the continued salvation of the church from all that would buffet
us in this world and all that would separate us from our God. This is a prayer that's common
to the whole body of Christ, from the head to any and every
member of his body. Essentially, it's a prayer for
the glory of our God in the salvation of his people. It's a good prayer. It's a prayer we should pray
more often, especially out of love for one another. So I just
want us to have a closer look at this psalm today. So I'll
read it and we'll have a look at it. Psalm 20 verse one. The Lord hear thee in the day
of trouble. The name of the God of Jacob
defend thee. Send thee help from the sanctuary
and strengthen thee out of Zion. Remember all thy offerings and
accept thy burnt sacrifice. Selah. Grant thee according to
thine own will and thine own heart and fulfil all thy counsel. We will rejoice in thy salvation
and in the name of our God we will set up our banners. The
Lord fulfil all thy petitions. Now know I that the Lord saveth
his anointed. He will hear him from his holy
heaven with the saving strength of his right hand. Some trust
in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember the name
of the Lord our God. They are brought down and fallen,
but we are risen and stand upright. Save Lord, let the King hear
us when we call. So verse 1 starts, The Lord hear
thee in the day of trouble. Scripture tells us that our great
forerunner, he was despised and rejected of men. He was a man
of sorrows, And he was acquainted with grief. So no doubt, his
life, his whole life was a day of trouble. But we saw recently
what really troubled him in John 12 was the agonies of Gethsemane
and the shame of the cross. Imagine our holy king. taking
every putrid sin of every chosen child of God into himself. Then imagine him suffering the
wrath of God for those sins at that cross. And that then resulted in his
separation from his father. That was his greatest day of
trouble. But what's ours? every single moment of our lives.
In Genesis 3, everything in this world was set against us. There
was now a natural enmity between us and our God. There was now
enmity between each other as we all wanted to be God. There
was also enmity between us and Satan. And if all that wasn't enough,
God increased our sorrows by cursing the ground. So brothers
and sisters, every single moment of our lives is a day of trouble. We're vulnerable in all things. And whether we know it or not,
we're constantly in need of saving grace. As believers, we know something
of our frailty. We know something of the greatness
of our enemies. But most of all, as believers,
we know by experience that the only real and effective help
comes from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. So we pray
for one another. We pray that our Lord will hear
us when we cry, and not just hear us, but act on our behalf. Look at the second part of this
verse. The name of the God of Jacob defend thee. So there's
much to be said about the name of God, and there's never ever
enough time to cover it all. But what's referred to here is
our God's character, His attributes, His righteousness, His holiness,
His justice, His love, His mercy, all those attributes which met
and were magnified in absolute perfection at the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ. those very attributes which save
and sustain us for all eternity. That's what we call our God to
employ in our day of trouble. See, believers, we're all just
Jacobs, aren't we? Before a holy God, we're just
Jacobs. Jacob means deceiver. Jacob represents
sinners. He represents someone who has
no hope of salvation in themselves. He represents someone in need,
in great need of a great salvation. A salvation that can only come
from our glorious God. So out of love for one another,
We put our God in remembrance of his precious promises to needy
sinners like ourselves. We plead with him to defend us
for his holy name's sake. We plead for one another that
our God would, verse two, send the help from the sanctuary and
strengthen thee out of Zion. Our prayer for one another is
that our sovereign God, the God who upholds all things by the
power of his word, would consider the circumstances of our brethren
and send his Holy Spirit from on high, that he would personally
draw near and comfort them, that he would refresh their souls,
that he would sustain them in the trial, that he would be their
shield and defender. and that he would, even in the
greatest of troubles, reveal both his glory and their good
in all of it. We also pray that our gracious
God would act in the lives of those whose souls we love, because
they too are his children. They're also accepted in the
beloved, loved everlastingly, holy, Like all the children of God,
they're justified in our Lord Jesus Christ. So we remind our
God that all his salvation lies in the finished work of our victorious
King and Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ. Look now how verse three begins.
Remember all thy offerings. To remember a person's offering
is to receive it, to have respect to it, to accept it. Every person's life, in a sense,
is an offering to God. All men will eventually come
into the presence of God, a holy God, And at that time, there
will be a judgment of God upon the sin of their lives. For the
saints of God, we met our God here, in this life, and our judgment
took place at the cross. But for all others, they will
meet a holy God in judgment, and their lives, their whole
lives, will be their offering. The offerings or the lives of
all the children of God are accepted in the Beloved. See, we need
to remember that this represents a prayer of a believer. for other believers. So here
we remind our God that these are his people. These are people
that trust in his promises for life itself, a people reconciled
to him in Christ. We remind him that the lives
of these loved ones of ours are sprinkled with the justifying
blood of his precious son, and that in him they have a great
and effective advocate in heaven by whom their lives are accepted. Which brings us to the next half
of this verse, and accept thy burnt sacrifice. Do you notice that the offerings
there were plural? but now we're talking singular.
The burnt sacrifice, it's a picture of God's wrath falling upon sin
and consuming all impurity. It represents the substitution
of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross and his satisfaction for
our sin. It also represents a purifying
access into the very presence of our God, both to be heard
and to be helped. Hebrews 9.24 says, Christ is
not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are figures
of the true, but into heaven itself. Now, make sure you got
that, now, to appear in the presence of God for us. Hebrews 10.10
says, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ
once for all. And then we have the word Selah.
As most of us know, it means contemplate. It's to consider
what's been prayed, and more importantly, who it's been prayed
to. So I just want us to take a moment
to contemplate this prayer, because in structure, it represents all
the prayers of the church. With this prayer, We come before
our holy God looking for grace in the lives of our beloved brethren. We ask him to hear them in their
time of need, to take notice of their particular trouble,
to defend them, to help them, and to strengthen them. And we
ask it all on the merits of their great representative, our Lord
Jesus Christ. And then as so often happens
in our contemplations, we remember who it is that we're praying
to. We remember that we're bringing
our petitions before the God of all gods. We remember that we come before
a living God who knows the end from the beginning, a most high
God who's ordered all things from eternity. We remember that we come to our
God, a God who rules and reigns over all things in creation,
simply by the power of his word. We remember that we come to the
only hope of any salvation in all the world. And finally, we remember that
we come to a God whose power and wisdom are as far above ours
as the heavens are above the earth. Which is why these contemplations
usually bring us to a place where we remember our own salvation
and we simply rest all our hopes on the will and the work of our
God. a God who loves his people completely
and perfectly. Verse four, grant thee according
to thine own heart and fulfil all thy counsel. So having considered our petition
and even more particularly the faithfulness of our God to his
people in his son, We now just leave the result in our God's
very capable hands. Just like our saviour did in
the garden, we cry, nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. In faith, we commit our loved
ones and their trials into the hands of our gracious God. And
we do it on the basis of his counsel, his everlasting covenant. This covenant took place before
the foundation of the world, where God chose the people from
himself and he committed them into the sure care of his son
for all eternity. This is why David in 2 Samuel
23 at the end of his life says, Yet he has made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things and sure, for this is all my
salvation and all my desire. David simply trusts his life,
both physically and spiritually, as does the whole church, to
the covenantal promises of our God, who works all things for
his glory and for the good of his people. And that brings us
to faith's expectation. Look at verse five. We will rejoice
in thy salvation. We, the church, united, we, individual
members of the body of the Lord, we, all of us, rejoice in thy
salvation. We may never see the prayers,
the answer of our prayers this side of eternity, especially
prayers for others. However, reminded of the amazing
love of our God for his people in Christ. By faith, even now,
we rejoice in sheer expectation, knowing that our God cannot lie,
he cannot fail, and no harm can ever come to his people spiritually. These too are promises. See, what's actually happened
here is praying for our brothers and sisters brings us into the
presence of our God, which in turn refreshes our souls. It reminds us of the faithfulness
of our God. It strengthens our faith. And it causes us to rest completely
in the finished work of our victorious King, in the lives of our beloved
brethren. And the verse goes on, and in
the name of our God, we will set up our banners. The picture here with banners
is referring to the standard or the colours of an army where
the flags are lifted high in battle and the soldiers are reminded
of the king that they love and fight for. They're reminded of
the power he has over their enemies. For us, spiritually, These banners
represent the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. They represent
our witness to all that our God reigns. They also represent that renewed confidence in us
that comes from prayer for our loved ones. Verse five finishes,
the Lord fulfill all thy petitions. As I read earlier, James 5 tells
us the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avail much.
Romans 8 also says, What shall we say then to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? So in renewed confidence in our
God, we lift our Gospel banners high. We remind each other that
the victory is won, that our King has already prevailed, and
all is very well with the Lord's people. whether we see it or
we don't. I just find it amazing that our
love for one another can bring us to a place where our own faith
is strengthened, where we remember the Ebenezers of our own walk
with the Lord and his faithfulness in them. A place where our own
souls are so refreshed and the salvation of our brethren so
sure that we simply go forward declaring the glory of our God
in the salvation of his people. Verse six, now know I that the
Lord saveth his anointed. Much like Jonah, moved by his
own experience, we simply declare that salvation is of the Lord. You notice there that it's saveth,
the Lord saveth his anointed. The ETH means that the salvation
of God is a continuous activity in the life of his anointed. And who's the anointed of the
Lord? Our Lord Jesus Christ is the
Anointed One of God, and all those in Him. All those He represents. We're all members of His body,
aren't we? We're all one with Him. We're
all joint heirs with Him. And according to John 17, we're
all loved by our Father, just as He's loved by the Father. which is why we also know he
will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his
right hand. Now this is quite an amazing
statement, the more I looked at it. Do you notice that our
God hears with the saving strength of his right hand? It means that
the evidence of his hearing is revealed in his saving actions
toward us, and that this saving strength of God lies at his right
hand. Isaiah 41.10 says, Fear thou
not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God. I will strengthen thee, yea,
I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand
of my righteousness. The right hand in the scriptures
is the hand of power, and it's also the hand of preference. So we also need to remember who
it is that sits at the right hand of our God. Again, it's
our Lord Jesus Christ and all those in him. Here at the right hand of our
God, seated in Christ, all the children of God are eternally
safe. Safe, because here at the right
hand of God, the place of God's strength, the place of our salvation,
here sits our victorious King, our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse seven, some trust in chariots,
some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord, our God.
They are brought down and fallen, but we are risen and stand upright. This same testimony runs throughout
all the scriptures, doesn't it? In Genesis 4, Abel bought a lamb
picturing Christ, but Cain brought the work of his hands. In 1 Samuel
17, David, when Goliath came to him, said, Thou comest to
me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield, but I come
unto thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the
armies of Israel." The other week, Angus read from Zechariah
4, where the Lord said, not by might, nor by power, but by my
spirit. And again in Romans 9, it's not
of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
showeth mercy. You see, in the scriptures chariots
and horses represent the strength of the natural man. They also
represent man's attempts to enter the presence of a holy God on
the basis of his own righteousness. And they represent our own tendency
to approach the many problems of our life in our own wisdom
and power. But, but, we will remember. For us to remember is for us
to receive, to embrace, to rest in the hope of all the elect
children of God, all the believing saints, all those that are washed
in the blood of the Lamb. All our hopes lie in just one
place. They lie in person, don't they?
And more particularly, in his character. There's just one place
of peace with God. There's only one way to approach
his holy presence. And there's only one basis of
communion with him. And that's our Lord Jesus Christ. Those who trust their lives,
whether it's physical or spiritual, Those who trust their lives to
their own wisdom and works are brought down and fallen. That's a promise here. When a
horse and chariot are brought down and fallen, they have no
value towards victory. And in fact, they can even become
a hindrance on the battlefield. Now that's what the strength
of natural man is before a holy God. Our works are always tinted
by sin. They have absolutely no value
in salvation, and in fact, they're probably the greatest hindrance
to any of us ever coming to know the Lord. There's another one of these
buts. But we are risen. and stand upright. To be risen is to ascend, to
ascend into heaven, to ascend into the very presence of our
holy God. When our Lord Jesus Christ ascended
into heaven and victoriously sat down at the right hand of
God, we also, according to Ephesians 2, ascended and sat down in him. He alone is our entrance into
the holy presence of our Father in heaven, and more than that,
he promises in Romans 14 to make us to stand before our God in
his own righteousness I can't think of a better conclusion
to this sermon than our next verse. Not only is it a great
summary of Psalm 20, it actually sums up the prayers of all the
saints of God throughout all time. Let the King hear us when we
call. And it's just that simple, isn't it? If there is to be any
salvation in any part of either our own lives or the lives of
our beloved brethren, the King must hear. Every child of God
has access to their father in their union with the Lord Jesus
Christ. By his perfect and finished work,
every single one of us can come in a sense as a small child and
climb up on our father's lap and pour out all our concerns,
great and small, and amazingly be heard. And at the end of the
day, our best prayer for ourselves or for others is simply, save
Lord. Let the King hear us when we
call. One of the greatest ways we can
love each other. is to use our access into the
favourable and loving presence of our God and bring our brothers
and sisters and their trials and just lay them before our
merciful God. As we see from this psalm, it
grows our love of our brethren. It promotes our gospel witness
both to ourselves and to others. It magnifies the glory of our
God, and amazingly, it refreshes our own souls and increases our
faith. What a great blessing it is to
be given love for one another. What a great privilege it is
to be moved to pray for them. What a great honour it is to
enter the presence of our holy God. And what a great testimony to
the victory of our great King Jesus, that in him, our God really
does hear us when we call. May our gracious God grow love
for one another. may unite us in his glorious
gospel and may remind us as often as need be that every single
one of us have access in his beloved, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen, let's pray.