"Pray Until You Pray" Psalm 86 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Good morning, Emmanuel.

It's a joy to be with you again.

And it's been a number of years since I've been here, and you haven't aged at all.

You look great.

So my beard has turned white as snow, so I'm not sure what happened, but you all look wonderful.

It's good to be with you here in the greater DC area.

I had a great people, a great time with your young people this weekend in the Leesburg area.

I'm considering retiring to rural Virginia now.

And uh just so you know, California is still there.

Yeah, that that was about the right amount of applause.

And it's good to it's good to be with you.

I'm grateful for your pastor allowing me to stand in this space and inviting me to do so.

He's a man who's always prepared, who comes uh with a high regard for the word of God, and and I know you you love his ministry and he's taught you so well.

Uh it's it's really uh a joy to to be the beneficiary of his ministry and to share the word of God with you.

He always knows what he's going to say when he comes in the pulpit.

And uh there's a lot of churches where the pastor gets up and he has no idea what he's gonna say, and you can tell.

So you're you're a very blessed people.

Praying is not like preaching, though.

Uh Psalm 86 is our attention this morning, and and praying, unlike preaching, we often don't know what to say.

It's common to struggle in prayer, and I think that's what's happening in Psalm 86.

It's a prayer that's a process for David, and it reminds me of something the Puritans used to say pray until you pray.

And that's the title of this sermon from Psalm 86.

Let's begin by reading it: A prayer of David.

Incline your ear, O Yahweh, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.

Preserve my life, for I am godly.

Save your servant who trusts in you, you are my God.

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do I cry all the day.

Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.

For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.

Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer, listen to my plea for grace.

In the day of my trouble I will call upon you, for you answer me.

There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours.

All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name, for you are great and do wondrous things.

You alone are God.

Teach me your way, O Yahweh, that I may walk in your truth.

Unite my heart to fear your name.

I give thanks to you, O Lord, my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever.

For great is your steadfast love toward me.

You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

O God, insolent men have risen up against me.

A band of ruthless men seeks my life, and they do not set you before them.

But you, O Lord, are a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Turn to me and be gracious to me.

Give your servant strength and save the son of your maidservant.

Show me a sign of your favor, that those who hate me may see and be put to shame, because you, Yahweh, have helped me and comforted me.

This is the very word of the living God.

Pray until you pray.

That's what the Puritans used to say.

And when it comes to praying, it's a common experience for us to not know what to say.

Our hearts at times are unable to express themselves.

We run out of words in prayer, our hearts sometimes broken over our sin, the sin of others, our trials sometimes overtake us, and we don't know what to say to God as we try to articulate our hearts.

We'll wrestle at times with spiritual coldness or even a lack of desire to pray.

And when we pray, there's times we just don't know what to say.

We try to pour out our hearts to God, but nothing comes out.

And I think that's why the Puritans encouraged each other to pray until they had prayed.

In other words, prayer is an experience that takes effort on the part of the petitioner that isn't always simple or easy.

And sometimes a struggle is involved.

Pray until you pray.

D.A.

Carson, in his book A Call to Spiritual Reformation, comments on this Puritan phrase, pray until you pray.

He says, that's Puritan advice.

It does not simply mean that persistence should mark much of our praying, though admittedly that's a point the scriptures repeatedly make.

What they meant is that Christians should pray long enough and honestly enough at a single session to get past the feeling of formalism and unreality that it attends not a little praying.

We're especially prone to such feelings when we pray for only a few minutes, rushing to be done with a mere duty.

If we pray until we pray, eventually we come to delight in God's presence, to rest in his love, to cherish his will.

Such advice is not to become an excuse for a new legalism.

There are startling examples of very short, rapid prayers in the Bible, but in the Western world we urgently need this advice, for many of us in our praying are like nasty little boys who ring front doorbells and run away before anyone answers.

Pray until you pray.

And it's that Puritan advice that reminds me of the lessons of Psalm 86.

Psalm 86 is a different kind of song because it's Davidic.

And in the third book of the Psalter, where it is contained, it's the only Davidic song.

Though David wrote lots of Psalms, this one stands in a special place in the composition.

But as you noticed as I read it, there's so many familiar phrases that are marked by lots of other psalms that are familiar to you.

And so it's a very kind of common material, but there's something special about the way this psalm progresses.

David takes a good amount of time to get to where he's going.

The song is a prayer full of petitions, but the specifics of his petitions are prefaced by logic and theology, expressions of his own need and articulation of the awareness that God has, that David has of who God is and what God has promised.

In Psalm 86, David gives us a good example.

He teaches us, like his grandson would, the Lord Jesus Christ, how to pray until you've prayed.

And as we follow his journey of prayer in his time of loneliness and affliction, as we see David apprehend by faith what God has said and who God is, we learn better how to pray.

And so I think it's best we look at progress in this prayer, considering it in three stages.

The first is verse 1 through 7.

And I want to give those verses this heading Our sovereign God hears prayer.

Our sovereign God hears our prayers.

And I mean every word of that.

Let me show you why that's so important.

Verse 1, he begins with incline, look at verse 1, incline your ear, O Yahweh, and answer me, for I am afflicted and needy.

This is a direct plea to God.

Not to some generic deity, but to the covenant God of Israel.

That's why he employs the name Yahweh, all caps in your Bible, Lord.

At the very outset of his prayer, he's talking about a specific God.

The God who revealed himself, the God who called Israel to be his people, the God who delivered his people from the Exodus, the God who appointed King David to be the shepherd of his people.

This is Yahweh, the one true God, the creator, the covenant God.

And David asks God to incline his ear, an anthropomorphic expression.

And he speaks to God by name four times using the covenant name of God.

Verse 1, Yahweh, answer me.

Verse 6, give ear, O Yahweh, to my prayer and heed the voice of my supplication.

Verse 11, teach me, O Yahweh, your way.

I will walk intently in your truth.

And then finally, using it in verse 17, because you, O Yahweh, have helped me and comforted me.

Fourteen different ways in this song, he pleads to God directly.

Four times with the covenant name, other times using other names for God, but constantly pleading to God.

His prayer is Godward.

He's not praying for an audience that overhears.

He's not praying concerned about what someone else might think.

He is pleading with God, directly opening and closing his song, his prayer with that same kind of language: direct request, begging, beseeching, asking of God to answer and to hear.

And the important thing to note is David at the outset has a kind of logic built into his prayer.

It's not the mindless babbling and vain repetition that Jesus warned his disciples against in Matthew 6, 7.

Instead, it's a very logical, careful, an argument arranged in his prayer that's featured in verse 1.

And the first example is one particular word that's really important to understand.

David's prayer logic, it's the word in your Bible, for, F-O-R, for.

For I am afflicted and needy.

That represents a similarly little word in Hebrew, key in Hebrew.

And it's really important to understanding this prayer because that word for, you could translate it because is a rational word, a logical word.

And when we're driven to God in prayer, in crisis, in our emotion, sometimes we need a minute to remind ourselves what we're praying for and what the basis of our prayers are.

And so David is in danger.

David is assailed and assaulted, but he's pausing in prayer long enough to reason and carefully think as he cries out to God.

Look, it doesn't need to be neat and tidy, but it needs to be true.

And that's what David sees.

He looks to God, he has a simultaneous awareness that parallels who God is and who he knows he is.

And so he says, Turn your ear, Yahweh, verse 1, answer me because I am afflicted and needy.

David talks to his God and expresses to his God a true evaluation of himself.

He's God, I'm afflicted and needy.

You see, prayer admits at the outset that we don't have what we need.

When we cry out to God, we're saying to God that there's something that we lack.

And David says, I'm afflicted, I'm vulnerable, I'm needy, I'm poor.

David is asking God to hear him.

And with that awareness, David knows he's going to be listening to God.

Psalm 85, verse 8, maybe just a page before, says, Let me hear what God, the Lord, will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints, but let them not turn back to folly.

Psalms 85:8

You see, true prayer is mindful that we are needy and afflicted and is quick to ask God for help, but aware that we also need to be listening to him, because the God we're praying to in verse 2, the request is given.

Preserve my soul.

That's the second time he uses that Hebrew word, key, for, because nine times total in this song, preserve my soul, save my soul, for I am a godly man.

So David sees himself both as afflicted and needy and godly.

When's the last time you prayed that way?

God, I need your help.

Because I'm godly.

Does that sound right to you?

If you heard someone pray that, what would you think?

Oh, are you?

I mean, I have a lot of prayer requests.

I'm raising teenagers at my house.

Prayer.

And I don't know if I've ever started one with, hey, I'm godly.

And I'm a professional Christian, too, by the way.

What's behind that word that David's employing?

Hasid.

Hasid.

It's the word, Hebrew word for loyalty, like the Hasidic Jews.

David isn't saying that he's earned God's favor through the things he's done.

David isn't saying he's as righteous as he could be.

We know from David's own testimony, his own story, Psalm 32, David sinned big time.

But that didn't stop David from expressing that he knew whose side he was on.

Even in his lowest, even in his neediest, even in his most repentant, he was loyal to God.

That's what godly means.

He's on God's side.

David prays to God and reminds God that he's allegiant to God and God alone.

He belongs to God and God belongs to him.

There's no competition for David's heart.

And so he says, preserve or save my soul, for I am a godly man.

You, my God, save your servant who trusts in you.

We start to get to the heart of David's understanding of prayer as we move towards verse 3.

David's requested salvation in verse 2 is for preservation.

And we're just being reminded of God's sovereignty and our prayers being heard by our sovereign God.

And as David requests salvation in verse 2, preservation, now he requests grace, something he'll repeatedly ask for all the way to the end of this prayer.

He says, Be gracious to me, O Lord.

And now that's not the name Yahweh there.

It's a different title for God.

It's an important one to note because it's thematic in this song.

He begins by addressing him as Yahweh, covenant name of God, personal name of God.

But in verse 3, and then seven times following, he'll use a different title.

The Hebrew word is Adonai.

You're familiar with it.

We usually translate it Lord.

It could also be translated master or sovereign one or sovereign God.

The idea behind Adonai is master, sovereign, Lord.

And the one petitioning is a servant, a slave, humble, lowly, and afflicted.

In verse 4, David says, the soul of your servant.

And so when David speaks to God, he's acknowledging God's sovereignty and David's submissiveness.

God's high and lofty position as master and Lord and David's lowly position as slave and servant.

And prayer has to do that.

It has to acknowledge the sovereignty of God.

Otherwise, what's the point of our prayers?

I mean, if we could fix it ourselves, we would, right?

And when we come to God, it's an acknowledgement that we can't.

I can't fix this.

I can't change the heart.

I can't resolve these circumstances.

I cannot change society or the culture or make anybody.

I mean, my dog barely listens to me.

And so when I pray, I'm talking to somebody who's more powerful than I am.

Who's all powerful.

And so I cry out all day long and keep calling God the sovereign one.

Verse 4, for to you, O Adonai, O Lord, I lift my soul.

Verse 5, O Lord, are good and ready to forgive.

Verse 8, there's no one like you among the gods, O Lord.

Adonai, verse 9, before you, O Lord and Master, they shall glorify your name.

Verse 12, I will thank you, O sovereign, glorious Lord, and Master my God with all my heart and glorify your name forever.

Verse 15, but you, Adonai, sovereign God, Master, God of merciful compassion and grace.

David prays to a sovereign God, a God who rules and reigns, a God whose control of all things is absolute.

And maybe this creates a dilemma in your mind.

Because if we're petitioning God, but God is absolutely sovereign over all the affairs of mankind, over every molecule in this universe.

The question is, why do we pray?

If God is completely sovereign, then why pray?

If he's got all the outcomes figured out, if everything's going to end the way God wants it to end, then why do we pray?

Well, the answer is we pray because God is completely sovereign.

It's the sovereignty of God that gives us confidence that we can pray, knowing that our prayers don't turn God, they don't change the will of God, God's perfect way.

Our prayers involve us in what God is doing.

Our prayers move us.

The perfectly sovereign God who rules and reigns over this world, the one who is completely, meticulously sovereign over the affairs of mankind, over the high and the low who controls every breeze and every storm, every cell in our bodies, and every movement of an army in this world seen.

Everything in this world is under the auspices of the meticulous sovereignty of God, and nothing comes into our lives that hasn't passed through his sovereign fingers.

And for that reason, we pray, listening to him, knowing that he's working in our prayer and in our requests, mindful that his will must be done.

And so we pray, hoping to be involved in what God is doing, desiring to be aware of where God is, of his direction in this world.

And when we see things that aren't right on earth, we beg God to make them line up with heaven.

And we know that someday he will.

And that's why David's prayer has so much confidence built into these petitions.

His confidence is in the sovereignty of God.

He says, For or because I cry out to you, verse 3, all day long.

And now he starts to show us how he keeps going in prayer, how he fuels this prayer.

He gives us a list of ingredients that stoke the fire of his prayer.

He speaks of gladness.

What a word, gladness.

Make glad the soul of your servant.

And he fuels his prayer with this gladness of his heart.

And David is in a place of affliction, a place of sorrow, a place of difficulty.

And so he's asking for the Lord to change his disposition towards one of gladness.

And to keep this prayer going, he's got to fuel it.

He's got to give reason for this prayer to move.

I am a smoker of meats.

And I believe in something called barbecue.

And it's it's nearly unknown in California.

If a Californian asks you to come to the barbecue, there's a good chance you're getting a hot dog.

That's not barbecue.

I'm not against hot dogs.

I had one between services.

Barbecue is meat cooked over smoke low and slow.

And it's different.

And it's glorious.

And I think it's based in the sacrificial system in Leviticus.

And I recently changed my methodology.

I used to use mainly charcoal.

You control the vents to control the temperature.

And now I have a real smoker, a stick burner, an offset.

And it is work.

I am constantly fighting fire.

I have to add just the right amount of fuel to get that temperature dialed in.

I want the smoke to be clean as it passes over the surface of that brisket so it gets jiggly and righteous.

Likewise, David.

Likewise, David.

Sometimes they get away from me.

Every preacher should know don't talk about meat this close to lunch.

Just like logs on the furnace, on the fire, David's prayers are fueled by something.

As David asks for salvation, rescue, and grace, he starts to list out some ingredients I want you to note here as he Praise to a totally sovereign God.

The best way to understand is to have scripture show us what it means to lift up your soul.

Psalm 24, I think, is a good example because that's the first ingredient.

That's the first stick on the fire, is I lift up my soul.

Psalm 24 explains that pretty well.

24, 4 says, he who has clean hands and a pure heart, who's not lifted up his soul to falsehood and is not sworn deceitfully.

And then again in Psalm 25, verse 1, O Yahweh, I lift up my soul, O my God, in you I trust.

Psalms 25:1

Do not let me be ashamed.

Do not let my enemies exult over me from these two uses of this concept of lifting up your soul.

Kind of a strange phrase, right?

We start to discern what it means.

If in Psalm 24 lifting up your soul, the opposite of that is to join yourself with falsehood and false gods and deceit.

And if in Psalm 25 lifting up your soul is an expression of trust in God and God alone, then to lift up your soul is a statement of exclusivity.

And that's that first log on the fire.

David's worship and the first piece of fuel for his prayer is, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

That's single-minded devotion.

It's an expression by David, knowing that God, the sovereign God, will meet all his needs.

A second bit of fuel is in verse 5, because to you, O Lord, sovereign one, you are good and ready to forgive and abundant in loving kindness to all who call to you.

If the first bit of fuel is single-minded devotion to God and God alone, the second bit of fuel he puts in this prayer furnace to stoke this flame of desire and petition to a sovereign God is his understanding of the character of God.

That's what verse 5 is all about.

When verse 5 is simply a statement of theology, for you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you.

He's good and he's ready to forgive.

It's put in an adjectival intensive form that you could translate, you're all forgiving.

And then he says, You're abundant in loving-kindness to all who call out to you in verse 5.

He has more theology in verse 10 and again in verse 13.

David will reiterate the character of God in his prayer.

And when we don't know what to pray, and when our prayers seem stuck, a great place to go beyond this single-minded devotion that we must have to God and to God alone is to remind ourselves and to remind God that we know what he's like.

I mean, theology is a fancy word.

But when you know the character of someone, think of your most trusted confidant, your best friend, your spouse, maybe your dad.

Somebody that you can really count on.

And you would say something like, Well, I know he would never do that.

You could say that with confidence.

Because you know what kind of a guy they are, what kind of a friend they are, what kind of a partner they are.

We need to think that way about our God.

Because all flesh can fail us.

But we find lots of dependability in human relationships, far more in God.

And so when David says you are good and forgiving, he's making a statement of faith about who God is, about what God is like.

And we remind ourselves and we remind God that we know him.

We're aware of his character, his goodness, we're loyal to him because he's compassionate and forgiving and he's loving-kind to all who call out to him.

And it's just more fuel on our prayer.

And in verse 6, he says, give ear, Yahweh.

Well, wait a minute.

Did he not already talk about ears in verse 1?

Is this just a beautiful repetition of Hebrew poetry in part?

But he says it again, give ear to my prayer and give heed to the voice of my supplication.

What kind of fuel is that?

It's simply a repetition of the expression nearly identically in verse 1.

He's saying the same thing.

And though there is poetic beauty here, I think what's being shown to us is something that's commonly expressed to us in one of the keys to fueling our prayer.

He says it once, he says it again, and then he says it another way.

You know what that's called?

That's called perseverance.

That's called insistence.

It's what we read about in the scripture reading just a few minutes ago.

Jesus himself taught his disciples that they should be borderline, annoying in their prayers.

Isn't that unpleasant?

Wouldn't that wake you up at night?

Don't you want me to stop?

That's the point.

Jesus commends that kind of praying.

Who do you call in the middle of the night?

Jesus says that lady did prayer right.

And here's David.

Turn your ear, Yahweh.

Answer me, verse 1.

And here's David, verse 6.

Give ear, O Yahweh, to my prayer and give heed to the voice of my supplication.

He's just knocking and putting fuel on the fire.

He's saying, My single-minded devotion is one of the pieces of fuel.

Your character, O God, is another piece of the fuel.

And I'm not going to quit.

I'm going to keep praying because I still got problems.

And I'm still on earth and you're still in heaven.

And your character hasn't changed.

And I know your will is perfect, but I'm keep going to knock on your door.

Because I know you're good.

And you can forgive and you can save and you can intervene and you can rescue.

And in verse 7, in the day of trouble, he says, I shall call upon you again, for you will answer me.

A final piece of fuel here in this first section.

You will answer me, is what it says.

Verse 7, I shall call upon you in trouble.

That's what's happening in prayer.

You're asking God for help.

But then he says, You will answer me.

Does that sound presumptuous to you?

Or does that sound like conviction and faith?

With single-minded devotion and insistence on the unchanging character and faithfulness of God, with repetition and perseverance in prayer, mingled with a certainty that God will answer.

And he will.

Maybe not in the way that you foresee it, not in the way that you would answer it, but his way is better.

And so we trust that he always hears us and he always answers because he always accomplishes his purposes.

And we stoke the fire of prayer and we don't give up and we don't ding-dong ditch.

We don't let trouble overtake us.

And David just keeps on praying.

Our sovereign God hears prayer.

And so when we're confronted with the absolute sovereignty of God in passages like Ephesians 1.11, that God works all things to the counsel of his will, we can be fully assured that God is always doing something.

And though we don't see it and we don't know what it is, we pray anyway and ask God to help us become aware and part of what God is already working.

God will answer your prayers, dear saints.

And in verse 1, when David asks God to answer, and in verse 7, when he asserts that God will answer, we see the boldness that saints have when we pray to a sovereign God.

Exactly the kind of prayer that Jesus asked his disciples to pray.

That's that first portion, the sovereign God hears our prayers.

The second kind of stage in the development of this praying until he prays is that our sovereign God is without compare.

Verses 7 to 13 is without compare, is above all else.

It's captured well in verse 8.

There is no one like you among the gods, O Lord Adonai.

This is simply comparison.

And I don't think we employ this enough in our thinking and in our praying.

Because if we compared God enough, we would think more often of how exceedingly good God is.

You see, in the Old Testament, there was all kinds of gods and goddesses that competed for the attention of God's covenant people.

Atheists didn't exist.

I don't think they exist today either, just so you know.

Instead, people worshiped Baal, the Asheraz.

They worshiped Molech.

And constantly the scriptures compare God, Yahweh, the God of Israel, to other gods all over the Old Testament.

Isaiah constantly mocking false gods and talking about the exceeding excellence of God.

Isaiah 46, Isaiah 55.

All over the Psalms, this kind of language occurs.

And God is expressed to be better, more powerful, more real than all other false gods.

And that's a kind of comparison that David employs here, and one that I think is a lesson to us on how to press forward in prayer.

He calls God sovereign three times in this section alone, in verse 8, in verse 9, and verse 12.

That's that word Adonai, Lord.

But he begins with this expression of God's uniqueness that he's incomparable.

There is no one like you among the gods.

And then he moves this comparison from heaven.

Verse 8a, when he says, There's no one like you among the gods.

And then he moves it to verse 8B and talks about nature, nor are there any works like yours.

Works in the Psalms are primarily God's creation, not the things God does, but the things God made.

Psalm 19:1, the heavens declare the glory of God, the skies display the works of his hands.

Psalms 19:1

So his works are the things he's created.

And so, starting with the realm of the gods, there's no one like you among the gods, and then moving down to nature, God's works, everything God's made, nothing compares to him.

And then in verse 9, he speaks of all the nations that you have made, looking now at the crown of God's creation, the making of humankind.

And he looks not just at individual people, but all of mankind.

He says, the nations.

In the Psalms, the nations are usually depicted as a problem, as an enemy of Israel, as those against God.

But here, David says something insightful.

All the nations which you have made, verse 9, shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name.

How did David know that?

I mean, that's just a stunning piece of revelation right there.

How did David know that all the nations would one day bow their knee to God?

He didn't have Philippians 2 in his Bible.

Every knee shall bow to the glory of God in Christ Jesus.

But somehow David knew that either in love or in terror, that all would submit to God.

And though David didn't have that full picture in all its Christological fullness in the eschatology of the book of Revelation, David had enough theology to understand that just on the basis of God creating everyone, that everyone ultimately will have to acknowledge him either by terror or by love.

Every knee will bow, every nation will come and worship.

God's plan is unbreakable in that way.

And part of that is fulfilled in the church.

A beautiful example of that is in the Messianic Psalm, Psalm 22, that says, All the nations will come and give tribute to the one true king.

David knew this because he understood that God was without compare, that the testimony of heaven, the testimony of nature, the testimony of mankind has to culminate in a historic and final realization that there is only one God, and there is none like him, and he's the one, verse 10, who does great and wondrous things because he alone is God.

And now he talks about the things that God does.

Everything that God has ever done in Israel's life in the past, in the story of creation, in the history of redemption, everything in David's life personally, everything in the kingdom would all be included in the works of God, in the deeds of God now.

David shows that there's no one like God.

God is incomparable, unique, and that's why he's so worthy of our praise.

And as we look around this world and we see a sovereign God accomplish things, we need to be quick to give him all the glory.

When I first studied Psalm 86, it was last summer in June, end of June, and I had an occasion for rejoicing, and I know you did as well, because God had a victory over Molech in our country.

June 24th, Molech, that Canaanite God who insisted on the sacrifice of children, who's always been a rival of Yahweh for the hearts of his people.

Featured in Leviticus and Exodus and passages in the Psalms, this bloodthirsty God Molech that demanded child sacrifice, who's been codified in our country since Roe v.

Wade in 1973.

And then one day in June, it got overturned.

Praise God.

You know what that is?

That's an answer to prayer.

Some of you have been praying for 50 years for that.

If you're my age, born after 73.

I was born way after 73.

You've only lived in a world with Roe v.

Wade.

And to know that God in His mercy heard our prayers.

And I heard critics of the pro-life movement say, well, that's well, maybe only 12, 14% of babies will be impacted by that.

What's remind me what's 14% of 1.4 million slaughtered infants per year in the United States?

Praise God.

He answers our prayers.

Keep praying.

Pray for Molex, California.

Pray because God is able.

I mean, that's the showdown on Mount Carmel, right?

Elijah versus the prophets.

They cut themselves, they cry, they curse, they pile up their sacrifice.

And then Elijah speaks to the true God and says, Go ahead and soak mine, fellas.

And God torches it.

God is incomparable because he's the only one who hears prayer.

And whatever this world is praying to, as they advance their so-called moral campaigns, I hope you know that there is not a God listening to them.

This is Paul's logic in 1 Corinthians 8 when he talks about meat sacrifice to idols.

He has this complicated sentence that talks about their so-called gods, but we know there's no such thing as an idol.

At the end of it, he says, Yet for us there is but one God, the Father from whom are all things, and we exist for him, and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things, and we exist through him.

All lowercase gods bow down to this capital God, this one true God, because people do worship all kinds of false gods, and that doesn't make them real.

It makes their worship real and dangerous and idolatrous and wicked.

People serve their gods with their heart and soul in mind.

They parade for him, they cry for their gods, they fight for their gods, they long to please their gods of self and sex and finance, but the one true God, the incomparable one in heaven, we have confidence that he's the only one who hears.

This is biblical monotheism.

And he calls out all other objects of worship as blasphemous and vain and empty and false as idols that will just make their worshipers like themselves.

But Yahweh's uniqueness among the gods and over creation, among the nations and all the earth, and in everything he's ever done shows that he's wonderfully unique.

What a God we pray to.

What a God.

That's why verse 11 leans into wanting to follow after God.

Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.

Unite my heart to fear your name.

Everybody wants to know God's will for their life.

All Christians love that truth.

And I love what David does here.

He simply unites, knowing God's way, knowing God's path, knowing where God wants you to go in your life, thinking about godly decision making, thinking about what path you're gonna choose, who you're gonna marry, what's gonna happen, what what choices should you make about your life going forward?

Everybody prays about that.

David did teach me your way, your path, O Lord, that I might walk in your truth.

Do you see he equates knowing God's way, God's will, with knowing God's word and obeying God's word.

Sometimes it's not to figure out, well, should I turn right or should I turn left?

You just need to remind yourself, I need to obey.

I just need to faithfully obey God and He'll show me the way forward.

That's David's confidence, as he doesn't know where to go because he's still stuck in his dilemma.

He hasn't even expressed his full dilemma yet.

And in verse 12, he says, I'll give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, I'll glorify your name forever.

Doesn't that seem like verse 12 should end this song?

But it doesn't.

Before he even gets to the insolent men, the enemies, he's already thanking God.

It's because the outcome is sure.

We have so much to thank God for, even in the midst of our trials.

To know that God superintends all things in this world, and we can walk in light of God's love and God's sovereignty, that he directs us in his truth along his path, and his will for our lives is to walk in obedience.

And the biggest threat, both to walking in God's will and to praying for God's will, is that our heart might be, verse 11, not united, double-hearted.

James describes that kind of heart as a double-minded man.

And David is just right here in the middle, thanking God and asking God to unify his heart so that he would fear his name, walk in obedience.

Spurgeon talks about this.

He says, For two, I often feel a heart and a heart, a double heart.

Two natures contending, two principles struggling for sovereignty.

Our minds are apt to be divided between a variety of objects like trickling streamlets which waste their force in a hundred rivulets.

Our great desire should be to have all our life floods poured into one channel and to have that channel directed towards the Lord alone.

A man of a divided heart is weak.

The man of one object is the man God, who created the bands of our nature, can draw them together, tighten, strengthen, and fasten them.

That's the kind of uniting grace we need.

That's how we know the will of God.

A third and final stage in this prayer is before us in verses 14 to 17.

And it's an example of the sufficiency of our sovereign God.

That our God, our sufficient God, has sufficient grace for us.

Sufficient grace for us.

That's our third and final point.

Look at verse 14.

Oh God, arrogant men have risen against me.

A crowd of violent men have sought my soul.

And they have not put you in front of them.

These are familiar folks in the Psalter.

They're called arrogant men or insolent men.

One commentator, Davidson, calls them people oblivious to God's instruction.

You've met them before in Psalm 119, these insolent men.

They don't listen to God, they don't obey God.

God, there are people who are ignorant of God, people who are oblivious to God's instruction, people who are against God.

You know people like this because we were people like this.

Surrounded by a culture like this.

And David has people that want to kill him and send his soul to Sheol.

They say life would be better if David wasn't in it.

And so he says, God, the arrogant men, the ones who are oblivious to you, have risen against me.

They're against you and they're against me.

The King James calls them a band of ruffians.

And so there's a violent threat here.

And they're seeking after David's soul.

He says that they're not in front of Yahweh.

Again, an issue of allegiance.

So much of our Christian life comes down to allegiance.

The difference between a believer and an unbeliever isn't that an unbeliever was intrinsic, a believer is intrinsically better than an unbeliever, or intrinsically smarter than an unbeliever.

It's an issue of our loyalty's been changed.

And so when he sees these enemies, these ones who are against him, he realizes they just have a different allegiance and says they're not in front of Yahweh.

Their allegiance is not to you.

The implication is David repeatedly saying, My allegiance is to God and God alone.

And so in verse 15, he does something that we need to do in our prayer.

He says, But you, O Lord, in comparison to his circumstances, his enemies, those who are his greatest threat.

What this prayer has been driving at all along is in verse 14.

People are trying to kill and undo David and get rid of him, but look where his focus goes.

It's on his enemies for a moment of petition, and then it goes straight back to God's character.

Verse 15, but you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness and truth.

Well, what is that?

It's nearly the same expression he gave to us in the first section of this song when he spoke of the Lord's goodness and all-forgiving character and abundance and loving-kindness in verse 5.

But here he says it more robustly.

He feels it out a little bit more.

And it's because he's quoting Exodus 34, 6, verbatim, word for word.

David sees the danger and immediately appeals to Scripture.

What a wise way to move forward in prayer.

To pray until you prayed, to get out the word of God that you've spoken to your heart and internalized it and speak it right back to God.

David appeals to Scripture and it's on Scripture he rests his case.

He knows this is true about God because he knows the word of God.

He knows who God is and who God will and what God will do because God has told him that's who God is and that's what God will do.

God is compassionate and merciful.

God is a God of grace.

He's gracious towards sinners.

His anger is slow.

He's abundant in loyal love, abundant in truth or faithfulness.

And so David quotes the Bible, and in verse 16, he says, Turn to me and grant me your grace.

Give your strength to your servant.

Here David is once again asking for grace.

It's been his most predominant request.

He's asked for deliverance, but he keeps asking for grace.

And that's because he knows everything God gives him is undeserved.

There's more to grace than that, and David gets it.

That's why he says, Your grace and your strength are what your servant needs.

In verse 16, he says, I'm lowly.

My mother is a handmaiden, and she's the servant in your house, and I'm just the son of a house servant.

He's highlighting his lowliness once again because he's asking for grace.

And the nature of grace is that it's undeserved.

But the other part of grace isn't just the lavish goodness and blessing of God on undeserving people.

Grace does something to us, it makes us strong.

It's why he says, give strength to your servant.

It's why Paul tells Timid Timothy and 2 Timothy 2, 22, 2, 2.

There's a lot of twos there.

Be strong in the grace, my son.

Grace is not just unmerited favor, it's strengthening, it's enlivening, it's embolding.

Ask God for grace because God is gracious.

And so David asks for grace.

And at the end of verse 16, your salvation to the son of your handmaid.

David asks for deliverance and a final request in verse 17.

Show me a sign for good, that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed.

What's David doing asking for a sign?

I think David just wants a glimmer here.

I don't think David is asking for a pillar of fire or a cloud in the sky or wet on the wool.

He just says, Show me a sign of your favor that those who hate me may see and be put to shame.

I don't know exactly what was in David's mind there, but he wants something that would vindicate him in front of his enemies.

Something that would bolster his heart and his confidence.

Something that would make David know that God is hearing him, a sign for good.

I think David just wants, he wants a testimony.

He wants to be able to testify.

He wants his enemies to see that God was with him all along.

He wants to get to the point where he can look back on his troubles and say, God brought me through.

And so he's ready to taste that.

He's eager to taste that, to testify of that.

So he asks for grace in verse 15.

He asks for deliverance in verse 16.

He asks for a testimony in verse 17.

All of this final section is just pointing towards a reality that God, our sovereign God, has sufficient grace for us.

Sufficient for your trials, sufficient for your testimony, sufficient to see you through to the end.

And I love how he closes this song out.

Because you, Yahweh, have helped me and comforted me.

You know that word comfort for Psalm 23, verse 4.

Psalms 23:4

I shall fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff.

Comfort me.

Comfort and help.

What a tribute.

What a reminder.

What do we need as lowly sinners, as petitioners who are trying to work our way through our prayers to try to speak to God and seek God's blessing and will and assistance?

I mean, ultimately, can't we boil it down?

What do you need from God, dear brother, dear sister?

What do you need?

Couldn't you say, I need help and I need comfort?

And those are the two things that David lands on.

By testifying that Yahweh has helped him and Yahweh has comforted him.

Likely nothing has changed in his circumstances.

And there's no news that he's not in trouble anymore, or his enemies got evicted, or whatever.

But he knows God is God.

That God is sovereign and God is sufficient.

And he hears our prayers, and there's no one like him.

And he helps us and he comforts us.

I love how this prayer lines up with that prayer we all know by heart.

The Lord's prayer.

The disciples' prayer, the one Jesus taught to the twelve.

Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

You could line this psalm up with that prayer, and you'd see so many corollaries.

As Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he had learned to pray by internalizing the Psalms as a child.

And who does he pray to?

Well, like David, he prays, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

He prays, Your kingdom come, your will be done.

What's that?

Well, that's sovereignty.

Same as Psalm 86.

When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, he knows that we have real needs.

And so Jesus says, give us this day our daily bread.

Or take David's version in Psalm 80, verse 6, I am afflicted and needy.

Psalms 80:6

I mean, it just lines up exactly.

When Jesus says, forgive us our debts as we're forgiven our debtors, that's simply the unique grace of God.

David's been hammering that same theme for 17 verses.

When Jesus says, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, that's simply a statement like David's of single-minded devotion, a united heart that's lifting our soul to heaven.

The Lord's prayer that he taught the disciples was not revolutionary and new just because the Pharisees had messed praying up so much.

In Psalm 86, and throughout God's people's history and testimonies, it's all there.

And when we learn to pray from David, we learn to pray from David's greater son.

And we hear the same lesson and we hear his testimony telling us to focus in our prayer on the sovereignty of God, to be aware of our great need, to lean into his unique grace and his incomparable nature, to be single-minded as we seek after God and his will.

And when you've done that, you'll have prayed until you pray.

Father, thank you for your work.

It's such a rich treasure for us to explore and to sit under and to learn and be humbled by.

Father, there's so many needs in hearts in this room right now.

Help us to bring them to you.

May prayer never be a burden but a joy as we explore the depths of your character, as we call out to a God who hears us and who is all-powerful.

As we cry out, God, in our troubles, help us to recognize your incomparable holiness, that there's no one like you.

And may we find comfort and help in your sufficient grace.

God, thank you for the audience we have with you because of the access we have through Jesus.

Friend, if you're here today and you don't have access to God because you've never given your life to Christ, I would invite you to respond today to the grace of God and the gospel.

Jesus died on the cross for your sins and God resurrected him from the grave.

That you might have new life by believing on him.

There are so many men and women in this church who would love to meet with you, talk with you, to help you find the Lord, and to cry out to him.

Jesus is the way to God.

And it's because of Jesus' sacrifice that he hears our prayers, that we can press into prayer.

So, Father, thank you for the access we have to you because of your beloved Son.

And help us to pray in our weakness, in our troubles, and to trust in your comfort and help.

In Jesus' matchless name.

Amen.

And now, for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.