Trust the Lord in the day of trouble.

Sermon Transcript

INTRODUCTION

 

I want to share with you my least favorite promise in all the Bible. My least favorite promise that the Lord has made to his people. In John 16:33, Jesus promised, “In this world you will have trouble.” It’s a promise. Jesus didn’t say, “In this world you may have trouble,” nor did he say, “In the world you will have trouble unless you eat clean, parent right, marry up, and plan ahead.” If you do those things you may have a little less trouble, but Lord Jesus Christ promised that in this world you will have trouble.” It’s my least favorite promise and we’re all in it together. Despite our diversity, we have this promise in common. In this world we’ll have trouble. Ok. So, what do you do when you find yourself in the day of trouble? Since Jesus is the most honest person in the universe, we are in a day of trouble, a day of trouble is coming, or we love someone who is in such a day. You will have trouble. What do you do in the day of trouble? Psalm 20 provides us with two binary options, two paths, two possible places to put our trust. Psalm 20:7 – “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” When the day of trouble finds you individually, or us as a church, we have two broad options: trust the Lord or trust in the best resources our world has to offer. That brings us to the big idea of our passage this morning: Trust the Lord in the day of trouble. Trust in the Lord in the day of trouble. How do we do that? 1. Understand your trouble (vv. 1) 2. Ask boldly (vv. 1-5) 3. Wait confidently (vv. 6-9). 

 

UNDERSTAND YOUR TROUBLE

 

Psalm 20 begins with this prayer: May the LORD answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob protect you! (Psalm 20:1). Before we can think about our days of trouble – individually or as a church family – we have to understand the day of trouble that King David and God’s people were facing about 3,000 years ago, when this Psalm was written. They were facing a military day of trouble. We know that from the reference to “banners” in verse five, which signified military confidence and victory, and “chariots” in verse seven, which were the nuclear warheads of the ANE. King David and the people of God were in the day of trouble, specifically they were at war with an enemy people. But there is more to it than that…

 

You see, David was no ordinary king, Israel was no ordinary kingdom, David’s family was no ordinary royal line. David was a unique king because God made a very special, iron-clad promise, called a covenant, with King David. God promised that a king was to come from David’s family line and that king would obey God, save God’s people from their sins, and sit on God’s throne forever. Here is the point: the day of trouble that Israel was facing wasn’t just a day of an ordinary battle. No, God’s promise to send the Redeemer, the Messiah, and the eternal King depended on Israel and David’s royal line surviving the battle. As God’s king went, so went God’s people. Spoiler alert (this comes in Psalm 21): Israel survived the day of trouble, David’s life was spared, His royal line was preserved, and God did fulfill his promise to send the Son of David, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ to save his people from the worst trouble: sin, death, and eternal judgment. Now that Jesus Christ has come, and this is the really crucial part for understanding our day of trouble, God’s plan to redeem his people doesn’t flow through one nation or people, like Israel or America, or one human leader, like David. Now that the Messiah has come and is risen, God’s people are not any one nation. Biblically speaking, there are no Christian nations, except for the worldwide people of God, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

 

The reason why this all matters is because it helps us see that the trouble we face as the people of God now that Christ has come is different from what David and God’s people were facing then. Their day of trouble was a foreign army that threatened to destroy God’s plan to save his people through a king from David’s line. Now that Christ has come, our day of trouble is different. Our day of trouble is anything that threatens God’s plan for you to glorify and enjoy Him forever. Our day of trouble is anything that tempts or hinders us – individually or as a church – from glorifying God, enjoying him forever, and helping others do the same. 

 

And the first step to trusting the Lord in the day of trouble is understand your trouble. When trouble comes, slow down enough to see your trouble from Christ’s perspective. To trust the Lord in the day of trouble you first have to understand your trouble. You have to understand how the trouble is tempting you away from glorifying God, enjoying him forever, and helping others do the same. That’s the real trouble. Slow down enough to understand it. Slowing down enough to understand your trouble can make all the difference when it comes to trusting the Lord. Take, for example, the Apostle Paul. At face value, the greatest trouble in Paul’s life was what he described as his thorn in the flesh. And everyone knows that no one knows exactly what the thorn was. My guess is that it was some kind of nagging, limiting, intensely painful physical ailment. That’s trouble. However, when Paul slowed down enough to pray three times for the thorn to go away, the Lord revealed that the real trouble wasn’t the thorn. The real trouble was pride. You see, Paul had some amazing spiritual experiences, he even says he was once caught up to the third heaven. I’m not even sure what that means, but Paul’s great experiences came with great trouble: the temptation to be proud. Pride tempts us away from glorifying and enjoying God and tempts us toward self-sufficiency. Therefore, God gave Paul a thorn to puncture his pride and make him truly dependent on Christ for true strength. The thorn wasn’t the trouble, it was saving him from the trouble of self-sufficiency. So, Paul could says, “I now brag about my thorn because it’s taking me to the low place with Christ, which is where truth strength is found.” Here is the point: in the day of trouble, the first step to trusting the Lord is slowing down enough to understand the trouble, to see what the real trouble is from Chris’s perspective. And that’s where being a consistent part of a Citygroup is so important. Citygroups provide the structure for rich community in Christ where we can help one another understand our trouble. Once you’ve slowed down enough to understand your trouble, you’re ready for step two in trusting the Lord in the day of trouble…

 

ASK BOLDLY

 

Now that you’ve submitted your trouble to God’s perspective, your heart is aligned with God and you’re ready to ask boldly. Asking boldly in the day of trouble begins with asking for protection from the trouble. Psalm 20:1 – May the LORD answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob protect you! Asking boldly begins with a bold request for protection. In the day of trouble, ask the Lord to protect you. This is how the Lord Jesus Christ taught us to pray. Matthew 6:13 – “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” When the day of trouble comes for you, for our church, or for someone you love, boldly ask God himself to keep you, us, them from all the temptation to trouble the day of trouble by responding to it with sin or despair. Ask boldly for God to protect you, protect us, and protect them from being pulled away from glorifying God, enjoying God, and helping others do the same.

 

Now, asking boldly isn’t less than boldly asking for protection, but it’s more than asking for protection. Since Jesus is on the throne, our bold asking can go on the offense. In the day of trouble boldly ask for protection, but then boldly ask for God to fulfill your plans for his glory and your desires for good! Psalm 20:4-5 – May he grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans! 5 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! In the day of trouble, we don’t just ask boldly for protection, we also take ground through our prayers. We ask God to fulfill our plans for his glory and grant our heart’s desire for good despite the looming trouble. This too is exactly how the Lord Jesus taught us to pray in this world where he promised that we’d face trouble. Matthew 6:10 – “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” In the day of trouble, trust God enough to ask for his protection and trust him enough to boldly lay it all out on the line and ask him to fulfill your plans for his glory and grant the desire of your heart for good things. Ask boldly. In his wonderful book on prayer, entitled, “A Praying Life,” Paul Miller writes, “All of Jesus’ teaching on prayer in the Gospels can be summarized with one word: ask. His greatest concern is that our failure or reluctance to ask keeps us distant from God. But that is not the only reason he tells us to ask anything. God wants to give us good gifts. He loves to give.”  Jesus himself said, “Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24). In the day of trouble, it can be difficult to find the right words to ask boldly. Thankfully, the Psalms were placed in the Bible not first to be read, but to be prayed. I wrote a prayer based on Psalm 20:1-5 for one of my typical days of trouble. I hope it helps you individually and us as a church learn to ask boldly by praying the Bible in the day of trouble.

 

“Father, today is a day of trouble. This is nothing new, Psalm 20:1 reveals that your people have faced many days of trouble in this fallen world. They faced an army, I am facing the descending dark clouds of depression. I’m feeling angry, irritable and distracted. I’m tempted to fantasize about having a different kind of life rather than living this one right here, right now for your glory, my joy, and the spread of the gospel. Father, this is a troubling day and I’m turning to you like your people did in Psalm 20. In Psalm 20:1 they asked you to answer them, and I am asking with even greater confidence because I am asking you in the name of your Son Jesus Christ, to answer me and come through for me today. As the people asked in Psalm 20:1-3, Father, please protect me from giving into my sinful inclinations to respond to how I feel with angry words, sinful fantasies, cold detachment, or trivial distractions. Father, I need nothing less than your presence to cheer my heart. Please remember that through the final sacrifice of your Son Jesus Christ, I am your adopted son. Please give me the good gift of your protection from the evil that depression could lead to today. Father, like the people prayed in Psalm 20:1-4, I am asking you to do even more than protect me from evil and the Evil One on this day of trouble. I am boldly asking you to grant me the desires of my heart for good and to fulfill my plans for your glory today. Father, I desire Holy Spirit cheerfulness. Please grant the desire of my heart. Father, I have plans for your glory today. I plan to lead and participate in staff meetings in which I remain completely engaged, speak warm words to others, and contribute to making wise decisions. I plan to work with Tim to move the facility design plans toward our budget, timeline, and goals. I plan to lead my children in devotions and guide the bedtime routine without becoming impatient. I plan to enjoy meaningful conversation with my wife after the kids are in bed, despite the fact that I’m going to be tired from not sleeping enough last night. Father, please come through for me in just this way so that I can shout for joy over your deliverance and give you the glory, as the people promised to do in Psalm 20:5. In Jesus name, amen.” I can pray these verses in any trouble I’m facing, my family is facing, or our church family is facing. Trust the Lord in the day of trouble: understand the trouble and ask boldly. Of course, this leaves us with one massive, looming question: In the day of trouble, what do we after we ask boldly, but the trouble remains?

 

WAIT CONFIDENTLY

 

Psalm 20:6-9 – 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. 7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. 8 They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright. O LORD, save the king! May he answer us when we call. Now that the people have prayed boldly for God to protect his anointed king and fulfill the anointed king’s plans for God’s glory, their confidence in God’s promise to save the anointed one is renewed. They’re ready now to wait with confidence for God to fulfill his promise. Waiting confidently isn’t killing time, it’s the settled conviction that they’re not going to trust in the world’s resources to save them, but God’s name, his character. After we understand our trouble and ask boldly, we wait confidently for God to fulfill his promises and answer our prayers as we’ve asked or as we would have asked if we knew everything that He knows. 

 

Very practically, waiting confidently means that we aren’t going to try to sin our way out of trouble. Think of Abraham and Sarah. In their old age, God promised this barren couple more offspring than stars in the sky. At first they waited confidently for God to fulfill His promise and their desire. However, as the years dragged on, their confidence began to wane. They concocted their own plan: Abraham would have a baby with another woman. They trusted in horses and chariots, not the Lord. Waiting confidently means doing the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way. It means asking boldly and then surrendering completely to his resources. It’s faith-filled confidence. 

 

And friends, our ultimate confidence in the day of trouble is that the Lord has truly saved an anointed one who is a king greater than David. The word translated “anointed one” is the Hebrew word “Messiah” or the Greek word “Christ.” The truth is that though the Lord did save David in that day of trouble, David still died. The hope of God’s people has always been in an Anointed One who comes from David and is greater than David, and He is the Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was eternally in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. Rather, he took on human form, was tempted in every way that we are without sinning, died in our place for our sins on the cross. But how did God the Father save Jesus the Anointed One? Here is how: three days after dying on the cross for our sins, God the Father saved his Anointed Son from the grave on the third day and Jesus now reigns on his heavenly throne at the right hand of the Father. Our ultimate confidence is that God did save his anointed king, raising him from the grave so that all who believe in him can rise to everlasting life. Christ is our absolute confidence that the Father hears us when we call. The King has been saved from the grave, he is reigning, and he will answer us when we call on the day of trouble. 

 

CUT MATERIAL

 

Our Psalm closes with a line that sounds odd to most Americans. Psalm 20:9 – O LORD, save the king! May he answer us when we call. The good news of the gospel is that God saved King Jesus from the grave to give eternal life to all who believe in him. So, now in our most troubling days, when we can’t find any other words to pray, we don’t pray “God save the king.” We pray “come Lord Jesus” because our king is soon returning and will answer our every call. Trust the Lord in the day of trouble. 

 

to fulfill his plan , , To really understand the day of trouble that King David and God’s people were facing, and how it applies to us, we have to do some serious theology, some serious Bible study. Are you ready? Ever since our first parents, Adam and Eve, sinned and turned away from God in the Garden of Eden, God has been promising to send a Redeemer to make things right and bring us back to God. From the beginning, he’s been promising to send a Redeemer. Now, about 4,000 years ago, the Lord chose one man named Abraham and God promised Abraham that he would send the redeemer through the family line of Abraham. Ok – fast forward 1,000 years from Abraham to when our psalm was written. The offspring of Abraham are one nation called Israel and they have a very special king named David. God’s plan was to send the Redeemer through the family line of Abraham and the royal line of David.

 

A cursory reading of the Gospels reveals that Jesus’ primary concern when it comes to our prayers is our reluctance to ask our Father to give us the desires of our hearts. 

 

 would seem that the Lord Jesus Christ is deeply concerned about our lack of bold asking for the desires of our hearts than our asking with mixed motives.  

In the day of trouble, whether it’s trouble that you are facing individually or we are facing as a church, in the day of trouble we trust in the Lord by praying big, bold, believing prayers; by asking boldly. Asking boldly is laying it out on the line and pouring your heart out to Him on the day of trouble. Asking boldly is telling God just how you’d like him to come through for the sake of his name. That’s hard to do. It’s hard to pray boldly for God to come through for you for the sake of his name. That’s one of the reasons why we should pray the Bible. I’m not saying that in the day of trouble we should simply pray or even pray biblical prayers. I’m saying that one of the best ways to ask boldly for God to come through for you for the sake of his name is by praying the Bible. In the day of trouble we should ask boldly by praying the Bible because God’s people in the OT and NT did, because Jesus did, because it glorifies the Father, because it helps you focus on what’s most important, it helps you focus, because the Bible is truthful, because it helps you pray confidently, because it helps you express yourself appropriately, because it keeps your prayers fresh and specific, because it helps you pray God’s priorities, and because it helps you love and understand the Bible more. To ask boldly in the day of trouble, pray the Bible. Pastor and theologian Kevin DeYoung has a simple three step process for praying any passage from the Bible. 3 R’s: Rejoice, Repent, Request. 

 

The reason why I say all this about praying the Bible is because the Psalms aren’t meant to merely be read, but to be prayed in Jesus name. Psalm 20:1-5 contains a series of eleven requests. Let’s see how we can ask boldly in the day of trouble by praying Psalm 20:1-5. (Provide brief commentary as I read) Psalm 20:1-5 – May the LORD answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob protect you! 2 May he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion! 3 May he remember all your offerings and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices! 4 May he grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans! 5 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! I wrote a prayer based on these verses for one of my typical days of trouble. I hope it helps you individually and us as a church learn to ask boldly by praying the Bible in the day of trouble.