-Annual reminder: book of PsalmS, each one is a PsalM 

-Why do we do Psalms in the summer?

1 -Everything is inspired. Can’t pick and choose which parts of the Bible we want to like, read study. We’re told ALL Scripture is God breathed and useful for: teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. All of it, down to the genealogies (God’s provision throughout generations)

2 -The songbook of Jesus. Jews throughout history have used the Psalms as to give voice to their praise of God. Remember what we saw in Mark last week where the city used Ps. 118 in their praise of Jesus arrival, using the same Psalm they recited each year but giving new focus and meaning to it.

3 -Gives voice to human emotion and experience. Addresses difficult things like: losing a child, betrayal by your best friend, losing a job, questioning God’s call on your life, wayward children, gratitude for God’s blessings, and how to praise God in the midst of life’s circumstances!

4 -is the only inerrant and inspired hymnal (notice the top of this week’s Psalm “to the choirmaster”) Because it’s God’s Word, this is the only completely perfect hymnal we have, and I think it’s intentional that it didn’t come with musical notation (praising God through music can’t be contained by any genre or style of music, use them ALL!)

5 -Forces us to slow down and meditate on these words God has given us. We are inundated with information today! What’s not happening is meditation on the right information. God’s Word is meant to transform us from the inside out, if we’re not soaking and suturing ourselves in God’s Word we won’t be conformed into the image of Jesus! 

-Explain vs. 0 

READ/PRAY

-Today’s Psalm connects back to Psalm 20 to demonstrate both how to ask God’s provision, as well as how to give thanks for God’s provision. 

-Overview of Psalm 20:

-Centered around the king, who is meant to serve as both God’s representative on earth, and the people’s representative to God. 

-The nation uses this Psalm to cry out to God for protection, abundant provision, and salvation of the king. In ANE, wars were viewed as fights between the gods, so if a nation was defeated, their god was viewed as inferior.

-What makes Israel unique is not their size, wealth, status, it’s the uniqueness of their God and their relationship to Him. (vs. 7). 

-Ends pleading to God to save the king when the people cry out, which sets us up perfectly for Psalm 21, where the people give thanks for God’s provision.

1. The King Trusts the Lord (1-7)

-Let’s do some remedial English work: anyone remember what a pronoun is? The way we faithfully interpret this Psalm is by paying careful attention to the pronouns. Look at how frequently “you” and “your” is used in this first section.

-Any honor, acclaim, or recognition the king gets is derivative. Even the king, who is meant to be closest to God and demonstrate God to the rest of the world is completely dependent on God!

–1 Cor. 4:7 “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (I got Cara’s money after we got married, she got my student loans)

-Yet how often do we act as if we’re the center of the world, celebrating in MY gifts, in MY talents instead of using and stewarding those gifts for the good of other people and the glory of God?

-Look now at how David responds to God’s good gifts: the king rejoices, exults, receives his heart’s desire, his prayers are answered 

-In short: David responds by giving thanks to God and praising Him, remembering all the ways God has provided for him. (keep that in mind as we continue working through this)

-Remembering is a key through the Bible: Gen. 8:1 “God remembered Noah” Gen. 19:29 “God remembered Abraham and Lot” during the destruction of Sodom. Ex. 2:24 “God heard their groaning and remembered his covenant with Abraham.” Ex. 20:8 “remember the sabbath day” Throughout Num. and Deut. “remember what God did.”

-Does anyone in this room ever feel like they have short term memory loss when it comes to God’s provision in your life? 

-“Here I raise my ebenezer” (stone of remembrance). We are such forgetful people! We would do well to remember, share, and exhort each other to continue remembering what God has done! Cara and I had the privilege of going to the EFCA national conference this past week and part of the reason it’s important to go is to remember what God has done in and through fellow ministers of the gospel. This feels like more of a family reunion than going to my family reunion! We’re a part of something bigger than ourselves, we’re caught up in a story with cosmic implications but we so frequently forget about that and instead focus on whatever current issues we have.

-One interesting note Micah brought up to me regarding the heart’s desire. We so often view this as more “stuff” (David and Solomon were rich, so should I!)

-Yet as we are sanctified (define!), our desires become more and more of what God would want, which is Himself (vs. 6). Think of Psalm 73:25-26 “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Asaph says there’s NOTHING that I want on earth besides God! Can you say that? 

-Friends, this should even affect the way we view eternity! I’ve been contemplating some of these ideas recently, as I shared, we had 2 miscarriages this past year, and that makes you long for heaven in a unique way. I’ll finally get to hold the 2 children that were taken from us! But I need to check my priorities with that, because the real treasure, and our real pursuit MUST be Jesus above all else. If we just view heaven as the place where we’ll get all the “stuff” we want, we need to check our hearts! The real joy and treasure of heaven is being as we were truly intended to be: in perfect relationship with God and others.

-Selah

-Some kind of musical notation, most likely an extended instrumental. Each time they appear in the Psalms, I use them as an opportunity for us to pause and reflect on the truths of what was just shared, so take a couple minutes and meditate on these first 2 verses.

-What does David go on to thank God for? There’s some specific things that he refers to:

-(3) Rich blessings and a crown of fine gold.

-The true king vs. any alternative “kings” We talked about that last week when we saw how Jesus’ arrival was predicted during David’s reign as the reign was given to Solomon.

-(4) Life and length of days

-Davidic promise and covenant with God (2 Sam. 7:12-13 “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.”

-Couldn’t be David or Solomon (or any earthly king! Last I checked every human still has a 100% mortality rate)

-(5) Glory, salvation, splendor and majesty

-All descriptions of God! Also true for the king as God’s representative, and also true (because of salvation) for us!

-Been studying the doctrine of salvation in my SS class: regeneration and adoption are 2 beautiful doctrines!

-(6) How are we to be blessed and glad? God’s presence!

-God’s presence is everywhere, sometimes we are more aware of it than others. (camping in the Rockies, seeing a herd of elk run across the mountain every night, singing songs with other pastors)

-God’s presence brings comfort, joy. Think of Psalm 139:7 “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?” Heaven, sheol, morning, sea, darkness, light.

-Story in Ex. 33, God gives the people what they think they want, but won’t go with them. Moses has the gall to go toe to toe and debate with God! Surely we can work up enough courage to ask God to be present among us!

-I think the crux of this Psalm is vs. 7, one author said it’s a summary of the whole book: God’s steadfast love, the king trust.

-Israel was a unique country in that when it was founded, they didn’t have a king. They were a theocracy (define). But God knew that at some point the people would want to be like all the other nations and ask for a king, so God told them what they should be looking for in a king: someone who commits themselves wholeheartedly to studying and obeying the law of God. In fact, in Deut. 17, the king’s first job is to write down the whole law of the Lord (first 5 books), get that approved by the Priest, then study and meditate on it day after day. No account of a king ever doing that. But look at how else it describes what should be true of the king: not many horses (a way of summarizing building an army), not have many wives (hearts will be turned away from the worship of God, intimate connection between sexual sin and idolatry), not amass silver and gold (temptation to rely on riches instead of trusting the provision of God). What’s heartbreaking is these descriptions here in Deut. Could also be summarized in Ps. 21:7, but unfortunately were not true of David or his lineage. 

-The word David uses here of trust has different connotations than the way we tend to use it today. According to TWOT, it “expresses that sense of well-being and security which results from having something or someone in whom to place confidence.” When they were translating the OT into Greek, they translated this word as “Hope in” instead of “believe in” in the way we would use it. It has more of a sense of assurance or the feeling of being safe and secure. Like think of driving through a snowstorm in the middle of the night, you see all sorts of cars in the ditch and the snow isn’t letting up! The moment you finally pull into your driveway and walk into your warm house and can finally breathe again is the sense communicated by this word. One note said it’s someone who is “unconcerned.” Can you imagine living as someone who is “unconcerned”? Yet that’s exactly what living as God’s child allows us to do. Think of Jesus’ words: if Jesus clothes the lilies and cares for the birds, why would we worry? We can live life as the unconcerned.

–The other word is Chesed in Psalm 136. Eddie (grew up in the Caribbean) it takes 10, 12, 15 times of saying something before you can actually start meditating on the truths that you’re saying!

-This should cause us to take a minute to reflect on whether or not we give thanks to God for good things.

-a good job, a healthy salary, appreciation of good co-workers. Do you thank God for those things?

• The Enemies are Destroyed (8-12)

-God’s presence also has a different meaning for those who are not following God:

-Think of some songs we sing: “Open up the heavens, we want to see you” “show us your glory.” The only reason we can boldly say that is because of the atoning work of Jesus! If it weren’t for Him being our substitute, we would be condemned! Think of all the stories in the Bible of people seeing God, fall on their face and realize their sinful state – until Jesus.

-All sorts of descriptions of how God handles His enemies, but the short summary is: they can’t stand against Him.

–Rev. 19 has a fascinating account of the last battle of all time. The enemies of the Lord assemble together, draw up battle lines, and then the war is done because Jesus wins just like that. It says everyone is slain by the sword that came from the mouth of the rider on the horse (His word). Just as God can create with a word, God can move mountains (or defeat armies) with a word. We saw that last week in Mark!

-Paul picks up this same idea in 2 Thess. 1:7-9 “⁷ and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels ⁸ in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. ⁹ They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, ¹⁰ when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.”

-To be opposed to God merits His destruction, it is the just penalty for disobedience towards Him. It is pretty trendy today to question and doubt eternal conscious punishment, but we need to acknowledge that’s how the Bible (God’s revelation of truth) speaks of the punishment of those who are opposed to Him. We have a misunderstanding of love (acceptance) and judgment. Honestly, I wish I could believe in annihilationism! But I am bound by what Scripture says, not what I wish to be true. If you want more information on that, feel free to email me, I don’t have time to dig into that issue today! 

-But that’s not where David ends this Psalm:

• God’s People Praise Him (13)

-What is a proper response to the way God mercifully saves His people?

-Singing and praising! Singing is FAR more than just music. Singing changes us, and we so often don’t even realize it! Singing brought down the walls of a jail for Paul! 

-At times the only thing we have are the words we’ve sung. I can’t tell you how many times in my life in times of crisis, music has been the balm to my soul to remind me the truths of what I proclaim up here week after week. And often it comes through the mouth of a brother or sister. Think of Eph. 5:19 “addressing one another” through our singing:

– “But God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men. When one person is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure.” Bonhoeffer, Life Together

-Do you speak God’s Word to others?

-Church, this is why we need to gather together, our faith isn’t meant to exist in isolation! God has called us into a family that He has brought together. God saves us a His people, and in response we must praise Him!