Pastoral Thoughts on Worship

Psalm 23 is the fearful picture of the Shepherd Warrior/King. It is fearful only for those outside covenant with God, but it is pure comfort for those in covenant with Yahweh. For some of us who have never been in the battlefield, worship is the closest to battle we will ever be. The great writer Alexander Schmemann argued that our worship is for the sake of the world. Somehow—mysteriously—our voices in the heavenlies push away the darkness of evil.

Satan was the prince of the air, but Christ’s ascension to the right hand of the Father means that there is a new King on the throne. Satan’s dark forces are being pushed more and more away from this world, until ultimately he is driven to the Lake of Fire where he will make his residence for all eternity.

This is why Psalm 23 is such a powerful picture for us. The King could come unarmed to battle, but He chooses the weapon of a rod and staff to frighten the enemy. But what frightens the enemy is the comfort of the friend.

When we worship, we are being led by our Great Warrior/Shepherd. We may seem small and the enemy may seem tall, but if our worship amount to only one stone, then that is what God will use to crush the enemy’s head. Thanks be to God!

Pentecost Season: Yahweh Saves! Psalm 20

SERMON AUDIO HERE

Sermon: People of God, the third commandment tells us that we are not to take the Name of the Lord our God in vain. The third commandment is another way of saying: You shall have no others gods but Me, which is the first commandment. When Yahweh says we are not to take His Name in vain, He is saying that we are to carry His Name with honor. We are to bear that Name on our foreheads day and night.  We are to carry the Name of our Lord to our workplace, to our schools, in our homes, in our relationships, in our activities and in all that we do Yahweh’s Name is to be permanently a part of who we are.

We are image-bearers of Yahweh. The Lord has placed His seal upon us; He has elected us before the foundation of the world that we should be imitators of Him.

But why are we to hold, bear, and carry Yahweh’s Name with us; because as Psalm 20 declares: God saves, sustains us, upholds and answers us.  We need not be afraid if Yahweh is with us.  As the Psalmist says, “Thy Rod and Thy Staff, they comfort Me.”  These are all divine acts. God is the initiator of all good things. He defends us because we are His people and His sheep.

Psalm 20 is a model prayer for Yahweh’s Covenant people to follow in times of trouble and distress.  The Psalm tells us that if we trust in Yahweh alone, if we worship Yahweh alone and if we bear Yahweh’s Name alone in all our doings, He will remember us.  Calvin writes that this prayer was given to the church “whenever she was threatened with any danger.”[1]

This prayer is a prayer for God to intercede on behalf of civil authorities. Verse 9 tells us that it is a prayer for a King. This prayer is designed for us to call on Yahweh to direct the steps of those who are leading us.  God’s chosen people counted a privilege to live under a leader that was appointed by God.  This King was God’s appointed defender of His people. The King defended the innocent.

What is unique about this psalm is that there is no separation between church and state. The reality of the Old Covenant was that church and state worked together to accomplish the same goal: the Lordship of Yahweh in all the land. But though church and state worked together, they did not interfere in each other’s affairs. As we learned from II Chronicles 26 concerning King Uzziah, a King was not to burn incense in the temple; the temple was the responsibility of the priest. In the same manner, a priest was not to be a politician, while serving bread and wine. The priest had a prophetic role to call the civil magistrates to embrace Yahweh as Lord.

This is a psalm of David. It is possible that this is David in an old age, perhaps in the end of his life. It is a mature reflection on the need for the people of God to lift up the civil magistrates in prayer. But this is not just an Old Covenant, Old World principle, this carries on clearly in the New Covenant. In I Timothy 2, Paul urges us to pray for all those in high positions, which for us includes the president, congress, senate and all those in authority in the federal level and in a localized level. So this Psalm of David is a call for God’s chosen people in the Old Testament and in this New Age of the Kingdom.

Let’s examine this prayer a little deeper.

What is the nature of this prayer? We know that Yahweh is the Savior; apart from Him we can do nothing. The prayer is directed to the God of Jacob, but according to verse 2, the petition is that God would bring help from the sanctuary and support from Zion. The Psalmist is placing the worship gathering as a source of help to the king. He is saying that the ruler needs desperate help from the church. In essence, the church, which is the sanctuary, is the fountain of all good mercies and graces. But why is this the case? It is the case because God has ordained praise and adoration to come from his holy sanctuary; He has ordained prayers, supplications, worship, spiritual nurture, maturity and all other graces to be sought within the sanctuary. It is through the gathering of the saints in renewing our covenants with Yahweh and asking Yahweh to remember His covenant with us, to remember His covenant promises to you and to your children. We can say without a doubt that the pages of redemptive history place the church as the center of all activities in the Kingdom. To be sure, the Church is not the kingdom, but it is at its center. God promises to protect His Church from the gates of hell and by necessity He promises to protect individual families and the civil government through the means of the One, Apostolic Church. This is why the early church, the Reformers and we continue to say today “that apart from the Trinitarian-ordained Church, there is no deliverance to be found.”

Psalm 20 serves as an indictment to those who profess the Name of our Lord and yet willingly decide to stay away from the Lord’s Church.

In verse 3, Yahweh will remember the King’s tribute. That is, the King will offer the fruit of his labor to God. God will remember the tribute of the King. God, in fact, delights in the works of the King. They are works of obedience. Far from a robotic relationship between God and man, God covenants with man. It is a true and genuine relationship.  God remembers your offerings, that is, He memorializes it.  He sees the king’s works as a good thing. In the same manner, we do good works to please our God. We offer Him our tribute offerings. This is clearly a call for the people of God to give their offerings to the sanctuary of God, where the ministry of God is most clearly seen. James tells us that good works is a proof of our living faith.

In the end of verse 3 we read that God accepts the kings’ sacrifice. “In this offering, the worshipper killed an animal and then presented the whole animal to God so that all of the meat is consumed in the fire and turned into smoke which ascends up into God’s presence, mingling with the Glory-Cloud that fills the tabernacle or temple.”[2] God clearly takes joy in the gifts of men.

In verses 4-5, we see the continuation of petitions from the people on behalf of the King. Though there are nine wishes in this Psalm for the king, we see seven “may’s.”  We see three may’s in verses 4 and 5. May God grant your heart’s desire; may we shout for joy over your salvation; and may the Lord fulfill your petitions.  This is a Psalm of victory. The people are asking Yahweh to give victory to the King, because if the King is victorious, so are the people. The people are asking that the King’s heart be so attuned with the heart of God that the King may be a man after God’s own heart, so that his petitions and requests would be aligned with the will of Yahweh. The Psalmist even prays that we may shout for joy over the salvation of the king. The prayer is that Yahweh would bring victory to His anointed over His enemies; those who oppose the message of the prophets. Continue reading “Pentecost Season: Yahweh Saves! Psalm 20”

Saturday Psalter

John Calvin’s Preface to the Psalter

What is there now to do? It is to have songs not only honest, but also holy, which will be like spurs to incite us to pray to and praise God, and to meditate upon his works in order to love, fear, honor and glorify him. Moreover, that which St. Augustine has said is true, that no one is able to sing things worthy of God except that which he has received from him. Therefore, when we have looked thoroughly, and searched here and there, we shall not find better songs nor more fitting for the purpose, than the Psalms of David, which the Holy Spirit spoke and made through him. And moreover, when we sing them, we are certain that God puts in our mouths these, as if he himself were singing in us to exalt his glory. Wherefore Chrysostom exhorts, as well as the men, the women and the little children to accustom themselves to singing them, in order that this may be a sort of meditation to associate themselves with the company of the angels.

Psalm 20 from the Genevan Psalter

Psalm 20:Theology of Warfare

There is a tremendous theology of warfare that can be found in Psalm 20. The people ask protection for the Messianic King. They ask that he may be delivered and victorious over his enemies. For these things to take place the king must be aligned with the purposes of Yahweh for the nations. He must rely on Yahweh first and not his militaristic might (vs.7).