A Prayer For The Church (Psalm 20)
Churches around the country are struggling. Many of them are closing their doors. Society at large, though it owes a great deal to Christianity for its prosperity, sees Christianity as an enemy. And if we’re not looking at what’s happening with the eye of faith, it is really easy to get despondent.
It is also very easy to begin relying upon the world and worldy methods of church growth. We see this taking place among a lot of people today. They will decide that they will capitulate to the whims of modern society in order to bring people into their church.
Let it not be so with us. Let us not think that we will gain a hearing from this world by being worldly. Let us not think that we should trust our own inventions.
As we read Psalm 20 and think through its meaning for today we have to remember that the people of God are different than they were in that time. For the people of Israel a prayer for the king and his faithfulness was a prayer for God’s people. Where he led the people, so went the entire kingdom. Yes, there would be people, such as Elijah, that would be faithful with a wicked king running the show but that was not the normal way of things. A prayer for David here was a prayer for the welfare of the people of God.
Lord, we your people trust in You.
Pray For The Church (Psalm 20:1-5)
This prayer for David, I have already argued is a prayer for the church as a whole. And so, as we think through this text that is the way we will apply it to our lives. This prayer, applied to our day, is a prayer for the church.
God help us in our struggles and protect us (Psalm 20:1). And the struggles can be many. Within this body of believers there has been many struggles to overcome even in the past few years. Wading through a year of Coronavirus and a pastoral transition. And through it all there has been prayer asking for help to get through it all. And there is still prayer asking for God to help us through our struggles. We are praying for aid and support from Heaven (Psalm 20:2). There is nowhere, no one, or nothing greater that we could turn.
We who are God’s people are seeking the help of the Almighty (Psalm 20:3). God remember us. Remember us. We are seeking to serve You Lord and are offering up our lives to your service. Lord, come down from Heaven and aid us. Give us strength. Give us Your protection.
May the day come when we look and see all the many great and glorious things that God had done in our midst (Psalm 20:4-5). May the day come when we look around this church and see the place packed to capacity having witnessed baptism after baptism as the power of God has come down from Heaven upon this place. May the day come when we see the salvation of many occur because God moved in power among us. That is our prayer.
And we move out from here and pray the same for the Church in Conway, Arkansas, the United States, and the entire world. We pray for God’s aid to come to His people and for people to come to faith in Christ.
We pray for God to aid the Church. We desperately need the Lord to come to our aid. Churches are shrinking all across this country. More and more people are choosing the ways of this world rather than Christ. We need the Lord to come to our aid. We need for Him to lead, guide, and direct everything that we do.
As the world grows dark, it hates us more. It stands in opposition to us more and more. And we plead for God to remember us, His people.
We Trust The Lord (Psalm 20:6-8)
In the text we see that God saves the king. It is assured that God will save the King. We need to understand that God is with His people and saves His people. He is with us and not against us. And He will save us. We are the Christ’s Church, the people of God. And not even the gates of Hell will prevail against us (Matthew 16:18).
And so, we do not trust in the devices of this age. We trust the Lord. The chariot would have been the most awesome of weapons at this time. But David understood that the greatest devices of any age would fall under the power of God.
As a church we do not trust in gimmicks. We will not trust God’s Word to fit the times. It is the Lord that we trust. And we do not waver in this. Our great hope is not in the powers of this age. Our great hope is in the Lord.
If this church is to grow, and if the Church around the globe is to grow, it will be because of the powerful work of God in her midst. It is God whom we trust, not in anyone or anything else.
I’m not a flashy pastor. I won’t be featured on Preachers and Sneakers. You won’t find me looking to gimmicks to run the church. But I will tell you what you will see me do. I will pray and study the Scriptures and come out of that office with something to say to you from God’s Word by the power of the Holy Spirit. That is what I will do because that is what God commanded for me to do. And God works through the power of His Word and the work of the Holy Spirit.
And I want to here look at another passage of Scripture. It will help us to see what dependence upon the Lord looks like for us today. It’s 1 Corinthians 3, especially verses 10-15.
The interpretation of this passage has been one that has been debated through the years, so I debated using it to discuss the text today. But it does seem plain enough to me that we can gain great benefit by looking at it in this context.
There were divisions in the church at Corinth. And these divisions were caused, in part, by people following different leaders in the church. So Paul argued that both he and Apollos were two different teachers that the church at Corinth had been brought to faith in and that it was God who gave the growth.
“What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.” (1 Corinthians 3:5-9 ESV)
It is obvious then that the context of this passage is about pastors, what they do, and the judgment that will fall upon them. The people of God are “God’s field, God’s building” and the pastor is at work building that field, that garden. This building will be a lot of different things, but it can be summed up in two different broad headings: Conversion and Sanctification. Conversion is when a person comes to faith in Christ. And Sanctification is a person’s growth in holiness. And, it is always to be understood that God is the one that gives the growth.
Now, Paul was given the ability to lay a foundation that other people would build upon and everyone is to be careful how they build upon that foundation (1 Corinthians 3:10). And that foundation is “Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11). And this work will be judged by God Himself by fire (1 Corinthians 3:12). If the work that the pastor has done survives the judgment, “he will receive a reward” (1 Corinthians 3:14). But whatever the pastor has done that is not build upon Christ will be judged as such.
“If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” (1 Corinthians 3:15 ESV)
And so, in the judgment the work of pastors will be judged. All of us will face final judgment. But the judgment pastors undergo will be the scrutiny discussed in this text. God tasks pastors with the building up of His people. And one day the work will pass before him. Though we’re not told what that means, I imagine that the people that God put in their care are somehow passed before him and he is either rewarded or not based upon how well he cared for them.
A pastor who is a believer but fails miserably at the task God has given him “will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Corinthians 3:15).
So, what does that mean for us as a church? Why is it important to discuss here?
Because God has given pastors a task and the building of his church is to be done in a certain way. As Paul would say to Timothy,
“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:1-5 ESV)
Other people will do things for those with itching ears. Other people will preach popular things. Other churches will teach what the world wants to hear. This church will be founded upon Christ through the preaching of God’s Word.
God Save Us (Psalm 20:9)
This verse is really a declaration of everything we have seen already.
The prayer here for God to save the King should be applied to the whole church today. We are praying for God’s power and might to fall upon us. We are praying for the expansion of God’s Kingdom. We are praying for the growth of God’s people. And we are desperate for God to answer our prayers.
We pray for the growth of God’s people. We pray for conversions. We pray for the growth of this local body of believers. And we pray for those undergoing persecution overseas.
And we pray for that fervently and desperately knowing that only God can do the work.
R. Dwain Minor