Rescue Us, oh Lord

[This sermon was preached on Palm Sunday 2022]

Hosanna means "please save us" or "save us, we pray." That's what the crowds shouted as Jesus rode on a donkey into Jerusalem. Perhaps the crowd was more interested in deliverance from Roman rule, but Jesus had come to save us from the power of sin and death. Psalm 44 is a psalm of national and individual lament and it divides into four sections. But at heart, it's a prayer for divine deliverance made under the only condition to which we can appeal again and again: "Rise up and help us; rescue us because of your unfailing love" (v.26). God is covenantal God and we can always pray that he will keep his promise, and he always does. The sermon concludes with four practical steps we can take when things are not going the way we wish they were.