Promise and Prayer for a New Year

Dannah Gresh: If you’re ever tempted to believe God has forgotten you, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says God’s Word indicates otherwise.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: We see that God has a vested interest in His people. We belong to Him, and He cares for His own.

Dannah: I’m Dannah Gresh, welcoming you to the Revive Our Hearts podcast for December 30, 2022. Our host is the author of Heaven Rules, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy: Well, we’ve come to the final Revive Our Hearts program of this year. I am so grateful. I’m so thankful for all the encouragement that we’ve received from so many of you, our listeners and readers, over this past year. And, how thankful I am for your prayers. They mean more than you could possibly know.

I also want to say a special thank you to all who have given during this month toward our year-end matching challenge. Your gift, your partnership in this ministry is an investment that will be multiplier in the lives of women around the world.

I’m thinking of women like the lady who signed up recently for our 30-day Bible-Reading Challenge. I didn’t even know we had a 30-day Bible-Reading Challenge current. I found out it was back in the archives. But those 30-day Challenges, you can go back to, and you can start, and you can get thirty days of emails. I just work here. I didn’t know that. (laughter)

So, she signed up for our 30-day Bible-Reading Challenge. It was from years ago, but she signed up recently, and she wrote to say, “I can’t wait to try this. I have never read a Bible before.”

How precious is this?! God is letting us have the privilege of feeding people who are well familiar with the Word, but also those who have never read the Bible before. Pray for that woman, would you, and others like her? Your support is part of helping us reach women like that.

I’m so grateful for what the Lord has already provided this month. And here as we come to the end of the month, we’re trusting Him for the balance of what is needed as we come to the close of this year and get ready to start a new year of calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

If you still want to have a part in helping us to meet this need, maybe you’ve been hearing about it during December, and you thought, I want to have a part in that, but you haven’t had a chance yet. Well, it’s not too late.

Just give us a call at 1-800-569-5959, or you can visit us at ReviveOurHearts.com and let us know that you’d like to have a part in the support of this ministry. Thank you so much in advance and those who have already given this month.

Now, we’re looking at Psalm 28 over the last several days, and we’re going to wrap that up today. I’m so excited about the last couple of verses of this psalm. They’ve really ministered to me, and I believe they will to you as well. But I want to begin by reading the entire psalm.

LORD, I call to you;
my rock, do not be deaf to me.
If you remain silent to me,
I will be like those going down to the Pit.
Listen to the sound of my pleading
when I cry to you for help,
when I lift up my hands towards
your holy sanctuary.

Remember, in verses 1 through 6, we saw David’s prayer. 

Let me just say parenthetically here, you always want to stay in a place where you need God. Now, maybe you don’t always want to stay in that place, but we should always want to stay in a place where we need God because, as I’ve said many, many, many times over the years on this program, whatever makes us need God is a blessing. It’s a blessing.

You say, “Well, I just feel too blessed. I don’t need any more blessings.” (laughter)

No, thank God when He puts you in a place that you need Him. Whatever makes you cry out to Him and lift up Your hands towards His holy sanctuary, that thing is a blessing.

And then in verses 3 through 5, continuing in his prayer, David prays that God will hold evildoers accountable for their deeds. Verse 3:

Do not drag me away with the wicked,
with the evildoers,
who speak in friendly ways with their neighbors
while malice is in their hearts.
Repay them according to what they have done—
according to the evil of their deeds.
Repay them according to the work of their hands;
give them back what they deserve.
Because they do not consider
what the Lord has done
or the work of his hands . . .

They’re too busy doing evil works with their own hands. They don’t consider what the Lord has done or the work of His hands. “. . . he will tear them down . . .” They may not consider Him, but He is thinking about them. “. . . he will tear them down and not rebuild them.”

This is a warning to repent and believe the gospel while there is still opportunity.

Then we saw in the last program that this prayer, this fervent-pleading prayer, desperate pleading and prayer in verse 6 becomes resounding praise—just in a moment. We saw how deep lament and also heartfelt praise can exist within the same heart.

Verse 6:

Blessed be the LORD,
for he has heard the sound of my pleading.
The LORD is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
Therefore my heart celebrates,
and I give thanks to him with my song.

Boy, it’s like a whole new chapter in this man’s life, isn’t it?

You say, “All in the same psalm?”

Yes. Your life may be tears and pleading and praying, maybe for a loved one or a prodigal child or a situation, a health situation, or just loss or grief or whatever. But in the midst of that, God wants you to encounter Him, to experience Him, to run to Him, to find Him to be your strength and your shield when you are so desperate and so weak, so defenseless.

And out of that, He wants praise and celebration and thanksgiving to well up with your mouth and with your song.

So David says, “The Lord has heard me. I’ve trusted in Him. He has helped me. I rejoice, and I give thanks.”

Now, to this point in the psalm, through verse 7, most of the pronouns have been singular—maybe all of them—my, I. It’s very personal. Very individual.

“The LORD is my strength and my shield,” David says. “I give thanks.”

But when we come to the final two verses of this psalm, David broadens his perspective to include all of God’s people. Let me read verses 8 and 9:

The LORD the strength of his people.
he is the stronghold of salvation for his anointed.

In verse 7, the previous verse, he said, “The Lord is my strength and my shield.” Now he says, “The Lord is the strength of all His people. He is the stronghold of salvation.” Some of your translations say, “He is a saving refuge for His anointed.”

Verse 9:

Save your people, [Not just save me, but save Your people.]
bless your possession, [Not just bless me, but bless all Your people.]
shepherd them, and carry them forever.

Now, look at those descriptions of the people of God. In verse 8, He calls them His people, His anointed. In verse 9, Your people, Your possession.

Now, contrast all of that with what we read up in verse 3 about the wicked and evildoers. Again, we’re reminded that there are only two kinds of people in this world. Every human being who has ever lived—except for Jesus—is in one of these two categories: the people of God, the anointed of God, His people, His possession or the wicked and evildoers.

People want to think today that there’s, some in-between group. “I’m not really bad. I’m not really spiritual. I’m just a good person.” No. You are wicked, or you are righteous.

Now, we're all born wicked. We’re all born sinful evildoers. But to the grace of Jesus Christ, the mercy of Christ that He’s poured out upon us through faith in Christ, through repentance of our sins and belief in the gospel of Christ through trusting the penalty that He paid for our sin, we have been made righteous, declared righteous. We have become the people of God. We have become His precious possession.

And so, as you look at people, just say, “Are we the people of God? Are we talking about the people of God here? Or are we talking to the people of God? Or are we talking about the wicked?”

You say, “Well, my neighbor, or that person in my work place, they’re not really wicked. In fact, some unbelievers act better than some believers.” (There’s something wrong with that picture. There ought not to be.)

Now, sinful people don’t act as sinful as they possibly could. Some do—a few do. Most can put on a veneer, can put on a performance, can look better. But the heart is desperately wicked. It’s deceived. So, don’t lose perspective that there are these two kinds of people.

So now, we’ve talked about evildoers and the wicked, the two-faced ones, but now David is focused on the people of God, His anointed, His possession. We see that God has a vested interest in His people. We belong to Him, and He cares for His own.

David had a rich personal relationship with the Lord. That’s why you see the “my and I” frequently in his psalms and in the first half of this psalm. But the things that David knew about God, the things he experienced to be true about God, are true not just for David but for every believer, for every child of God.

The blessings that David received from God are not just for a few of God’s very special favorites, not just for a few really saintly people or really godly people. They’re for you and for me. Those blessings that David claimed—the strength, the shield—the blessing from God, that’s for us. We are as much the people of God as David was.

So, let’s look at these two verses—verse 8, the first phrase: “The LORD is the strength of his people.”

Now, David has already said “the Lord is my strength” in the previous verse. But the Lord was not just David’s strength. He is my strength. He is your strength. Individually, He is our strength. And collectively, He is our strength, as the people of God in this world.

God has not changed. As people of God, living in a world of evildoers who wield great power, we sometimes feel so weak. And we are. We don’t have anything in us special, naturally, that non-believers don’t have.

“Oh, I’m a Christian, so I’ve got all this . . .” No. I don’t have any goodness in me. Paul said in Romans 7, “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, there dwells no good thing.”

We feel weak. We feel sinful. And we are apart from Christ. But “the Lord is the strength of his people,” says this verse 8. He doesn’t just give us strength. He is our strength, as He is our life and our righteousness and our hope and our joy and our peace. “Christ in us, the hope of glory.” He is our strength.

Scripture tells us, “Be strong in the Lord . . . take up the shield of faith,” Ephesians 6:16. Think of how God has strengthened and sustained and protected you in the midst of trials. “The Lord is the strength of His people.”

Then it says, “He is the stronghold of salvation for His anointed,” or “He is the saving refuge for His anointed” (v. 8).

You say, “Well, that doesn’t sound like me. That doesn’t sound like us.” Oh, but it is. Now, in the Old Testament, priests and kings were anointed for service. Kings were called, “The Lord’s anointed.”

That word “anointed” in the Hebrew, meshiach, is the word from which ultimately we got the word “Messiah.” The word “Messiah” came from the word “anointed.”

David was God’s anointed king. He experienced God as His refuge. But in this psalm and others, he also points to God’s ultimate anointed one—Jesus, the Messiah.

So you say, “Okay. David was anointed as a king. Jesus is the Messiah, the ultimate anointed one. What does that have to do with us?”

Well, those who have Jesus living in them, Scripture tells us in 1 John chapter 2, “have received an anointing from God” (v. 20), an anointing to serve Him as priests of His, the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

And as His anointed ones, we have Christ as “our stronghold of salvation, as our saving refuge.” That’s what verse 8 tells us. The Lord is the strength of His people. The Lord is the stronghold of salvation, a saving refuge, for His anointed ones.

And then in verse 9, David prays for the people of God. It’s really just this one verse, initially, that prompted me to spend this year on this psalm and to share it with you during the last week of this year. He says in verse 9: 

Save your people, bless your possession,
shepherd them, and carry them forever.

Now, David started this psalm by praying personal prayers. You see those in verses 1 and 2. In verses 3 through 5, he prayed regarding the wicked. He begged God to listen to his cry. Now, assured that the Lord has heard his pleading, in verse 9 he prays for the righteous, for all the people of God.

Listen, prayer is one of the greatest gifts and ministries that we can have in one another’s lives. Throughout this year I’ve found myself praying this passage, this verse, over people in need. In text messages, sharing it, sharing it in phone calls, sharing it in person.

As I was working on this session late one night this week, I got a text from a dear friend asking for prayer for a critical situation. I shared this verse with her in the text as my prayer for her: “Save your people, bless your possession, shepherd them, and carry them forever.”

Four short requests. Just two or three words each but so rich with meaning. These four requests cover most every need we could ever have. This is my prayer for you as we come to the end of this year and the beginning of a new one. I want to encourage you to pray this prayer for one another, for your family, for your friends, and for the Church, the people of God collectively, in our day.

So let’s just look at those four requests in the closing moments here.

Number 1: Save Your people.

You say, “Aren’t His people already saved?” Well, yes and no. You know there’s a past aspect to salvation—finished. Justification we call it. Saved from the penalty of sin. But you know there’s also a present, on-going aspect of our salvation. We call it sanctification, where we’re being saved from the power of sin. And we’re still awaiting a future aspect of our salvation. We call it glorification, when we will be saved from the presence of sin.

So, all of this is encompassed when David says, “Save Your people.” Deliver us. Rescue us. And continue rescuing us until we’re all fully, completely rescued from sin, from self, from Satan, from this world, from our enemies. When we’re in trouble, when we’re in temptation, Lord, “Save Your people.”

It’s a reminder that Christ is our only Savior, that we have no hope of salvation apart from Him. Save Your people.

And then, “Bless Your possession,” or ‘Bless Your inheritance.’ Most translations say it that way.

We know from Ephesians 1 and 1 Peter 1 that in Christ we have been given an inheritance, that Christ belongs to us. But Scripture also teaches that we are His possession. We are His inheritance. We belong to Him.

Deuteronomy chapter 4, says, “the LORD selected you and brought you out of Egypt’s iron furnace to be a people for His inheritance” (v. 20). Deuteronomy 32, “The LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob, his own inheritance” (v. 9).

And you see this in a New Testament sense in Ephesians 1, verse 18, where Paul speaks of “the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints.” The saints He is saving and sanctifying are the inheritance, the reward, of Christ’s suffering and the inheritance and possession of God.

So David in this psalm is asking God to bless us. “Bless Your possession. Bless Your inheritance.” That’s us. To help us appropriate the blessings that are already ours in Christ, there’s a lot of blessing to go around here.

Remember Ephesians 1 talks about how “God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ”? (v. 3). He’s talking here about not just temporal blessings. We can pray for those as we have need. Jesus taught us to pray for our daily bread.

But not just a better house or a different house or a better job or a happy marriage, but above those, the blessings of His presence, His peace, His favor, His grace, a clear conscience, oneness in the Body of Christ, revival, spiritual awakening.

We pray as we go into this year, “Lord, save Your people. And bless Your possession. Bless Your inheritance. Bless Your Church. We are Your possession.”

And then, number 3, “Shepherd them.” Shepherd them.

When Robert and I were dating, we had a song—it was our song. It’s still very much our song.

Savior, like a shepherd, lead us,
Much we need Thy tender care.

You never get past your need for a shepherd.

• He’s a Good Shepherd Psalm 23 tells us.
• He’s a Great Shepherd, Jesus said in John 10.
• And 1 Peter 5 tells us He is the Chief Shepherd.

What’s the role of a shepherd? To care for the sheep. To protect them. To lead them, govern them, feed them, provide for them. You see this in Isaiah 40, verse 11. It says, 

He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.

Shepherd Your people, Lord. Save Your people. Bless them. And Shepherd them.

And then this verse in Isaiah 40 leads us right into the fourth request here: “Carry them forever.” Carry them forever. That word “to carry” means “to lift, to bear up, to lift up.”

So in Isaiah 46 we read, 

Listen to me, house of Jacob,
all the remnant of the house of Israel,
who have been sustained from the womb,
carried along, lifted up, borne up, since birth.
I will be the same until your old age,
and I will bear you up. (vv. 3–4)

That’s a different word. It means “to bear a heavy load.” As we get older, we become a heavier load. We have more baggage, more issues sometimes. He has carried and sustained us since birth. He will bear us up, even as heavy as the load may be when we turn gray. I’m counting on that right now in this season of my life.

I have made you, and I will carry you [God says];
I will bear and rescue you. (v. 4)

So God carries us in the womb, through all of life, from the cradle to the grave, through all of eternity.

And how often do we feel, “I can’t keep going. I can’t carry myself.” Maybe you feel that the load on you right now is just too heavy to bear. There’s a wonderful promise for you there in Isaiah 46. And there’s a prayer here in Psalm 28. “Lord, shepherd Your people, and carry them forever.” Lift them up. Bear them up.

A couple of nights ago I got a text from a friend. Texting can be quite a ministry, by the way. I was in my study preparing for this series this week, and I’m getting texts from people who need what we're talking about here, or who illustrate what we’re talking about.

This friend has been sick recently with multiple symptoms she’s not been able to get help with. She texted me saying her house had just fallen off its foundation. That’s all she said. “My house just fell off its foundation.”

Then yesterday she sent me another text and said, “Good morning. I have COVID, but I have Jesus, too.” (laughter)

So the night before she said, “My house just fell off its foundation.” And the next morning she says, “I have COVID, but I have Jesus, too.” Here’s what’s happening with that woman, and we’ve had more than that text. We’ve had conversations, prayer together. What she’s experiencing is that her Shepherd is carrying her.

I have another friend whose daughter has had a complicated pregnancy with twin boys. A few days ago, at thirty-one weeks, they took the babies by emergency delivery to try and save the lives of the babies and the life of the mother. The mother survived, along with one of the babies, weighing just two pounds. The other baby did not make it.

I was reading these verses as I was learning about this, and God says, “You’ve been sustained from the womb. You’ve been carried along since birth.” I’m thinking—maybe you’re thinking—did God carry that baby in the womb? You bet He did.

The grandmother who was writing me about the story shared that faith, that assurance with me. And here’s what she wrote. (And I’m sharing this with her permission.) She writes through tears:

There is deep grief, especially watching our daughter and son-in-law navigate through such sorrow. But this truth rises above all else: Benjamin Davis (the little twin that they lost), he sees what we still hope and long for. I don’t know if Benjamin ran or skipped or fell into the arms of Jesus, but I know he entered glory whole, perfect, fully alive. How good and faithful is His love and compassion.”

Our Shepherd is holding, carrying, that precious family, including that newborn baby boy who weighs just two pounds, and whose mama cannot, as of today, see or hold her newborn son because she’s just getting over COVID—the woman who just delivered.

So, she’s lost the one son. She can’t see or hold the other baby. But God is holding her. He’s carrying her. He’s carrying those precious children, shepherding them, carrying them forever.

He’s carrying you. You are in His arms. He’s carried you all the way through this past year. Every day. Every circumstance. When you could see it and feel it, and when you couldn’t. And He will carry you every step through the year ahead. And He will carry you through all of eternity, forever.

The Lord is the strength of His people. He’s a stronghold of salvation for His anointed.

And then this final benediction and blessing we’ve just been looking at. It’s a prayer you can pray for others. As we head into a new year, I want to pray this for you. “Save your people, bless your possessions, shepherd them, and carry them forever.”

Lord Jesus, You are our strength. You are our salvation and our refuge. You are the Messiah, the Anointed One, and we are Your possession and Your inheritance. You are the Good Shepherd. You bear us up, and You carry us.

So now I pray for my friends listening today and for the whole Church of Jesus Christ in the world. Oh God, would You save Your people? Would You continue to save and redeem and sanctify Your people? Save us from ourselves, from sin, from Satan, from every false teaching, from every false way, from the waywardness of our own hearts.

Save us, Lord. Keep saving us. You’ve justified us. You’re sanctifying us. And one day, You’re going to glorify us. Don’t stop saving us until we’re all saved.

And then I pray, would You bless Your possession? We are Your possession. We are Your inheritance. I pray for Your blessing. And the blessing doesn’t just mean good things that look good to us, but what You know is best for us.

Lord, You’re our blessing. If we don’t have You, we don’t have anything. So I pray for Your favor, for Your grace, for Your peace, for Your mercy, for a clear conscience.

I pray for Your blessing on Your Church. I pray for the blessing of revival, for not just mercy drops around us falling, but showers of blessing, Lord, on Your Church in the world today.

I pray it’s not just for us sitting here in the West, but for our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world, in Iran, and in Afghanistan, and in the Ukraine, and in Russia, and in Vietnam, and other places where it’s hard, harder than it is here.

I pray You would save Your people. I pray You would bless Your possession. And then, Lord, I pray that You would shepherd these precious women, those listening today. Shepherd our families. Shepherd our hearts. Guard us, protect us, provide for us, walk with us, lead us, govern us, feed us. Much we need Your tender care. Like a shepherd, gently lead us.

Shepherd Your people, Lord. We’re in a wilderness. This world is a wilderness. It’s not our home. There are lots of threats, lots of dangers, lots of things that could trip us up. But as we come into this year ahead, Lord, would You Shepherd Your people?

And then, Lord, would You carry us forever? You’ve promised to do that, through joys and sorrows, through laughter and through tears, may we always be mindful that You are carrying Your people. You are bearing us up. You’re bearing our burdens up.

I pray for someone listening right now who’s stooped down under a really heavy burden or who’s facing this new year with dread, not with hopefulness. Lord, carry them forever.

Save Your people. Bless Your possessions. Shepherd them. And carry them forever. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Song: Fernando Ortega

Savior, like a shepherd lead us,
Much we need Thy tender care.
In Thy pleasant pastures feed us,
For our use Thy folds prepare.

Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus,
Thou hast bought us, Thine we are.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus,
Thou hast bought us, Thine we are.

(“Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us” by Dorothy Thrupp)

Dannah: Amen. That’s Fernando Ortega singing a hymn that is particularly sweet to Nancy and her husband Robert.

What a blessing to be saved, blessed, shepherded, and carried by the Lord. And what a beautiful conclusion to this series and this year.

We heard the host of Revive Our Hearts, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, praying a benediction and a blessing over us as we head into the new year.

Now, I want to remind you what Nancy mentioned earlier. Today and tomorrow are your last opportunities to give and have your donation applied to our December goal. Remember, if you itemize on your tax return, your donation to Revive Our Hearts is tax deductible.

Now, if you’d like to mail a check, I’ll give you our mailing address in just a moment. Online, you can make your donation at ReviveOurHearts.com. On the phone, just call 1-800-569-5959. And now, our mailing address is Revive Our Hearts, P.O. Box 2000, Niles, MI. And the zip code is 49120. Now, make sure your donation is postmarked by tomorrow.

Well, friend, have a safe and wonderful New Year’s celebration. Next week you’re going to hear about a well known hymn written for a special New Year’s service in 1773—250 years ago. Tune in on Monday to learn more about John Newton’s beloved “Amazing Grace.” Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is calling you to rest in God’s promises and find freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the CSB.

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