A Heart Cry for God

Man, that's that's a really good song. That's a really good. I'm not just saying that because I like Christmas.

Okay, that's a really good theological song and Maybe an encouragement is man.

I love Sunday nights because everybody's like forced to be close some people are rebels and but that's okay, but You know,

I just tell you just a thought here But heart tailored angels saying that would be like an easy win for dads or couples or whatever for you know

Family devotion maybe even around, you know, you can get a little closer to Christmas. That's okay

But you could just take a line of that a verse at a time and that would you know cover and actually there's more verses

I think right there's more verses right then than what we sing. I think there might be one or two more anyway

So, you know the Baptist hymnal we kind of shrink things down sometimes but you can You can look that up and you can also just read that and study and go the verses, you know

And and that would make for a good time of contemplating the Incarnation as we get closer and closer to Christmas But that's not what you're here for.

You're here for Psalm 119 Somebody somewhere said preachers get an extra hour of preaching today.

I don't think that's how it works really But tonight we're in Psalm 119.

We're actually on the 19th stanza There's 22 stanzas and we are on number 19 and we'll be in verse 145 so if you can find that tonight and the message title is

Simple just comes really from the first verse and then the following Theme of this stanza and that is a heart cry

For God a heart cry For God the stanza tonight deals with suffering the suffering is inevitable in this life, but in this

Stanza particularly we see that the psalmist suffering is brought about through the wickedness of others and that happens sometimes

Suffering is not always at the hands of others, of course, but in this particular passage it is now, how does the psalmist?

Answer this suffering. Well, he does so by praying And so I want to examine that tonight a heart cry for God psalm 140 psalm 119 verse 145 through 152 could we stand and just honor the reading of God's Word the 19th stanza

With my whole heart I cry Answer me. Oh Lord. I will keep your statutes.

I call to you Save me that I may observe your testimonies.

I rise before dawn and cry for help I hope in your words My eyes are awake before the watches of the night that I may meditate on your promise

Hear my voice according to your steadfast love. Oh Lord according to your justice

Give me life if they draw near who persecute me with evil purpose They are far from your law, but you are near O Lord and all your commandments are true

Long have I known from your testimonies that you founded them forever. Let's pray father.

Help us. I need your grace tonight Help me to articulate this truth Lord be here with us

Pray that Christ would be exalted Holy Spirit. We pray that you'd speak to our hearts some of us tonight need to be encouraged

We need to be encouraged to continue on in this discipline in prayer. Some of us need to be convicted

We need to repent and grow in this discipline of prayer Some of us perhaps even in a

Sunday night service need to be saved Perhaps that's a child here that for the first time realizes

Christ Truly is their only hope and they run to him or maybe it's a teenager or maybe it's an adult

But we pray Holy Spirit that you'd be pleased to apply the gospel tonight to their hearts. We pray in Jesus name

Amen, maybe seated So let me just look at a few aspects of prayer tonight from this stanza

And the first is I want you to remember who the psalmist prays to Who does the psalmist pray to and this is easy, this is a

Sunday school answer we pray to God Well, that's true. But notice here in verse 145 with my whole heart.

I cry answer me. Oh Yahweh verse 149 Again, hear my voice according to your steadfast love.

Oh Yahweh according to your justice. Give me life there again in 151 but you are near Oh Yahweh And the psalmist walk with the

Lord is meaningful and practical in times of pleasure and in times of pain We ought to turn to the

Lord because the Lord delights in his people's dependence on him. God truly is

Glorified in us when we come to him He's glorified in us and in his church when we acknowledge our dependence on him.

You're not strong enough I heard Gunner's prayer tonight. We don't evangelize just because it's in and of ourselves

We depend on the strength of the Lord you hear these exhortations from the pulpit You're not strong enough to do it on your own.

You need the grace of God Yes, I just don't feel like I measure up. Here's the newsflash.

You don't measure up You don't but Christ has completed the work. This is the gospel that we preach and by the work of Christ we're brought into a relationship with God a

Saving relationship where we go to him and we call upon his covenant name Remember Romans 10 13

I mentioned this morning those who call upon the name of the Lord Shall be saved and one of the characteristics of the saved is we continue to call upon the name of the

Lord You see the psalmist here addresses God by his covenant name and this covenant is based upon the grace of God That's why we call it.

It's called the new covenant or we call it sometimes the covenant of grace It's because Jesus has fulfilled the law all the work

Jesus has completed God didn't lower his standard for us you know this God completed his righteous standard his holy perfect standard in Christ and Then Jesus died the death of sinners children.

Do you hear me that tonight? You hear me kids? Young men young women. Do you hear me that the

Lord Jesus? demands from you perfect obedience Every time your mom or dad tell you something the

Lord Jesus expects perfect obedience That's the requirement

The bad news is you've never if you're honest with yourself, you already know this you've never met that Not one time has your mom or dad told you something and you've obeyed

Perfectly in heart mind and action you've always fallen short and so we've always broken the fifth commandment in some measure

And when God doesn't lower that for you you guys hear me. He doesn't lower that for you He didn't say well,

I know you couldn't make it. I know you know how your siblings are like that I know you guys couldn't do that. So I'll just sweep it under the rug

It's no big deal your mom or dad may act like that towards you or your teachers may act like that towards you

You know say like hey, not everyone made a good made a good grade So let me just curve everyone's great, but God's not like that because God is holy

God's better than that And he's just and so you break his commandments and God owes you one thing retribution

Justice even hell we understand and yet God in his mercy looks to Christ in Your place if you trust him if you look to Jesus children you hear me tonight if you believe on Jesus if you repent of your sins and Look to Christ you'd be saved and you come into a covenant relationship here with God and the psalmist understood his position with the

Lord and so should we We were bought with the price It is through the blood of Jesus tonight that we come to God in prayer that we can say that we can be bold the

Hebrews tell Epistle of the Hebrews tells us we should be bold boldly enter the throne room.

Why are we bold because we're so lovable No, why are we bold because we're we got it. All right.

No, cuz we hold a 1689. No, why are we bold? We're bold in this one truth

Jesus Jesus Christ is enough what he offered on the cross is enough for us to come to God And so we come to God his resurrection proves that God's accepted this sacrifice

And we see that the psalmist prays to the Lord in a covenant relationship Third secondly almost it thirdly secondly

We see when he prays so He says in verse 147

I rise up before dawn and cry for help I hope in your words a few things to note here

One is that true hope in the Bible will produce tangible changes in our lives the psalmist hope in the scriptures

Causes him to get out of the bed early and to pray Do we believe the scripture?

Okay, so a lot of us tonight we could just have a Resounding amens if we preach, you know talked about we need to stand on the

Bible and say amen We need a Bible in schools or whatever. Amen. We need to we need to be people of the book.

Amen But the psalmist actually believed the scriptures He banked everything on them.

I Rise up before dawn and cry for help. I hope in your words I see what you've given me

God and I believe it and he recognizes his neediness

He recognizes his dependence He cries for help many people do not pray as they should because they don't recognize their neediness

Friends remember tonight church family remember tonight that when we don't pray

We're telling God We got this We don't

I don't you don't now. I want to make a note here

To have to wake up early to pray man, that's I rise before dawn You guys realize with the time change we haven't done anything.

Okay spoiler alert We actually haven't done anything to the day. You understand we haven't shortened the day

We've just kind of moved things around right? And so the reality is now it's gonna get light

An hour earlier than we were yesterday Man, do

I are you telling me? I have to get up before daylight to pray. Well, I'm not trying to add extra rules here

It's not what I'm doing And I don't think that we could hold that and say if you're not getting up before daylight to pray

You're not even a Christian. That's not what we're saying, but I will do want to just make this observation

There is a definite pattern in Scripture concerning morning morning prayer Anyway, Psalm 5 3 for example says

Oh Lord in the morning you hear my voice in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch

Oh, we have the example of Jesus Mark chapter 1 verse 35 and rising very early in the morning while it was still dark

He departed and went out to a desolate place and there he prayed So I would just say this that many people in the scripture.

We have a pattern. We don't necessarily have a Command But we do have a clear pattern

That people in the scriptures and even in church history, they began their day in prayer

That's not saying the morning is the only time that we can pray But I'm saying there is something to say before we start our day before we step out onto the road

Before we head off to work before we get ready for school Whatever the case may be we'll go to the

Lord and we pray They say yeah, but you don't understand. I got to get up early. I get that But I would also say this maybe you don't understand

You can't keep going in your own strength You can't we need

God we need prayer Again, we have passage in the scripture that talk about pray with me.

I'm in a state of prayer without ceasing right now We should always be ready to pray I think Nehemiah is great.

Nehemiah has these long prayers and then he also has these quick prayers I think that's part of our life.

I think like mine and Stephanie's relationship and maybe you and your spouse's relationship. There are times we have long

Conversations and we need those and then there are also times that we send a quick text message to one another

Hey, love you stuff like that. Well our communication with God can be similar There are times that we do need the regular long conversations and then there are times that we can pray short prayers the point is we see the psalmist has

A priority of waking up and beginning his day with prayer now thirdly I'll mention this and kind of like this morning, but we're gonna this a little bit longer point

Not as long as this morning, but I just want you to notice how he prays Psalm 119 focuses on scripture focuses how it's a delight how it's sufficient

It's our hope someone but I want you to see how this psalmist uses scripture in his prayer for deliverance

Before we do that. Let's look exactly what he's praying for first. I just mentioned these he's praying to be answered

He says with my whole heart. I cry answer me verse 145. He's praying to be rescued verse 146

I call to you save me that I may observe your testimonies. He's praying for help 147

I rise up before dawn and cry for Help He's praying to be heard verse 149 hear my voice

According to your steadfast love. Oh Lord, according to your justice Give me life and he's crying there to be given life.

Also what I just mentioned in 149 so he's praying to be answered. He's praying to be rescued.

He's praying for help. He's praying to be heard He's praying to be given life

Verse 145. He says with my whole heart. I cry answer me. Oh Lord. I will keep your statutes

I'm gonna post something interesting to you tonight. Is there a connection? between obedience and God answering our prayers first John 3 22 says this

Whatever we ask we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him

So the text says with my whole heart back to 145 my whole heart. I cry answer me. Oh Lord I will keep your statutes and first John 3 22.

I'll read that again Whatever we ask we receive from him because we keep his commandments and we do what pleases him

Now, I think that the answer to this question is this when we are walking with the

Lord It's not that our obedience because our obedience always falls short. It's not that our obedience is manipulating

God Rather it's to be thought of this way when we are pursuing obedience

Do our prayers get answered more I think we could say the answer to that is yes

Not because of our obedience but because of this way when we're pursuing what the scriptures say

How does our mind and our heart and our prayers what begins to happen?

What do we begin to pray for? We begin to pray more in line with the will of God.

Do you understand? I'm not saying that we go out and we just like if you just obey God really hard Then he'll give you what you really really want.

Well, that's not true. We can't manipulate God That's not what we're talking about but there's something to be said when our heart and our mind is

Consumed with the scriptures and we want to be a holy people and we're trying to walk in the ways of the

Lord the way We pray is different Understand I pray for things that are aligned with the will of God Notice how the psalmist gives the purpose for his request in verse 146

He says I call to you save me that I may observe your Testimonies deliver me so that I can observe

Your testimony. I wonder tonight do our prayers come across this way

God. I want this thing Why? I Hadn't really thought about that.

I want it just because I want it. I don't want to kill a big deer I prayed the other day.

I did pray the other day that my kids would see a deer, you know and God answered that prayer with Caleb.

He decided not to shoot the spike. That's okay. He's he's too big and macho for that so according to him and Hadn't got to kill a deer me and Ella set for five hours and we didn't we didn't even see a deer

Sometimes I ask for things and I don't think about the reason I'm asking for them, but the psalmist did he's asking them verse 1 47 or 46 that he can observe the testimonies of God He's asking for rescue.

He's asking for deliverance so that he can be more faithful to the glory of God I Also want you to notice the psalmist makes an appeal based on God's Character, it's important to study the scripture to see who

God is and knowing who God is we can appeal to his character In our prayers look at for example verse 149 hear my voice according to your steadfast love

Right. So two things he makes an appeal to first what I just said is steadfast love I'll read the next in just a minute.

So he makes an appeal to God's steadfast love. That is God's covenantal love I want you to hear me based on what you have done

I want you to hear me based on who you are not not based on me Would you hear me again remember hear my voice according to your faithfulness not mine

Hear me according to your covenantal Loyalty Oh what manner of love is like the song we sang just a minute ago

The love that prepares the feast is the love that that drew us to God What manner of love that the

Father has given us that we should be called children of God and so we are By what

Christ has done. I Wonder tonight is God's love is we get hesitant because so many people corrupt it and love is a messed up in our world today but Christian Do you rest in God's love?

You should you should think on God's love We can't think of God's love without thinking of the cross

The cross is the very way that we know God's love is true. Not mere lip service.

He proved it Again, all we've talked about tonight is rooted in the love of God and this love of God is displayed at Calvary No, none of us tonight.

If you're trying to get to heaven based on being a perfect prayer warrior You're not gonna make it our our prayers.

Think about this folks. Not just our sins in our prayers There's enough shortcoming for God to be just to send us to hell and yet and yet The call of the

Gospels to rest in Jesus who fulfilled the law and died for our sins

Including our prayerlessness But guess what? He didn't just die for our prayerlessness

He rose again, too Which means we get a new heart a new heart the

Bible promises in that scripture passage We're memorizing that God writes his law upon a heart that that rests in God's love and now we desire to please him

So if you're resting in God's steadfast love, even though you fall short you desire to pray So the psalmist appeals to God's character.

He appeals to a steadfast love Hear my voice according to her steadfast love and then he says this Oh Lord according to your justice

Give me life. Now. This was a few weeks ago. But last time we talked about that. God is just He is righteous

Shall not the judge of all the earth? Do right and he shall and he delights in us praying to him even appealing to his own justice

Have you ever thought about that his justice? This is only for Christians, by the way, because I would

I'm gonna make a point just saying Remember what first John 1 9 says If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins

How about that How's he just? because of the cross We want the justice in this sense that justice has been satisfied in Jesus That's what we want to pray.

Oh Lord according to your justice. Give me life In other words, we're not saying look at me and in exalt me

We're saying according to what God has done in Christ. Give me life now Listen, I said if you're not a

Christian you don't want to appeal to God's justice Because God's justice means hell but but you can appeal to his mercy

You can appeal to his his his steadfast love you can say Oh God You can repent and believe the gospel

You can join us this church in loving the scriptures and seeking the Lord in prayer in this way

I hope that you've already seen that scriptures The scripture saturates the psalmist prayers and we see that here

We can press that a little further tonight to in verse 148 He says my eyes are awake before the watches of the night

That I may meditate on your promise. So last time we talked about when do you pray?

We said well, you got to get up before dawn We said that's an example, but now we look at the psalmist also stays up late

Does the guy ever sleep right? My eyes are awake before the watches of the night that I made it meditate on your promise

So he's up early. He's up late. But here in this text why that he may meditate on the promise of God Let me just encourage it to church with something tonight.

Do you want to increase your prayer life? You want to be a better prayer? I do I'm telling you tonight

I do not stand in this pulpit as one who has mastered the discipline or the means of grace that we call prayer

I want to be a better prayer It's hard to say prayer because it's spelt like prayer, right?

But I want to be one who prays better, but here's one way we can pray better We can saturate our hearts and minds with the

Word of God You see that there my eyes are awake before the watches of the night that I may meditate on your promise that I may soak in the realities of the scriptures

That I may not just read my Bible. I'm guilty with you. I'm I Struggle with you in this sometimes we read the

Bible right? I ask my kids. I'll pick on them. It's easier. Hey, what'd you read? I read

Luke 16. Okay. What's that about? Oh I can't remember

Okay. Well, I guess you got a lot out of reading your Bible today, right? But listen adults.

We're guilty of that, too Would you read this morning why I read well, what was about what we're talking about?

I was like, we're not just reading the Bible to check it off the list And and by the way, the answer so some people like the answer is don't read the

Bible. Oh That's not the answer The answer is to read the Bible and take it seriously, right?

the answer is to see this as the means of grace that it is and to meditate upon the promises of God and to see the

Glory of King Jesus in the scriptures and and the beauty of Yahweh and the beauty of his church

So we saturate we drink deeply we meditate on the scriptures we think about it why well

I'm saying there's many reasons for that. But tonight I'm saying we can Grow in the discipline of prayer through that Sometimes you need to read a verse over and over and over and over and just pour over every word

Pour over every syllable break it up. Memorize it write it on a note card until it sinks in I Told you

Brian Borman said maybe Daniel wrote this psalm a lot of people think maybe David wrote this psalm If it was

David then I want to remind you that David was a busy man He was a busy man.

You say yeah, but he doesn't understand busy like I'm busy. Well, okay He ruled the whole kingdom, right?

I want to make a joke about he had several wives But you understand he shouldn't have but you understand that it wasn't like he's got all these different people to take care of He's got a big family to take care of.

He's got a kingdom to take care of and Yet we see here that he has the time to Go to the

Lord in this way. I Want to put it to you this way when I say he has the time because I think that we

We look at this wrong when I say that he has the time I don't mean to say that he just had time left over that he spent with Yahweh Looks to me my argument would be and I would say this to the

Christian life and even my own life He didn't just find time He made time

He stayed up late if necessary. He got up early if necessary why so he could meet with God He made time to meet with God You make time

I make time for the things that are important to me. I Make time to watch a football game.

I try to make time I can do this better for my wife I make time for the things that are important to me

We should make time for meeting with God our heart should desire time

To meet with God some of you tonight The reality is you're in a rut and it happens you're in a rut and maybe even before you came in here tonight

You didn't even think about you being in a rut But you think about tonight when's the last time I got up and before I went to work

I sought God in prayer And maybe for some of you it's been too long Well, what's the answer?

The answer is not to take an axe and chop your foot off, right? That ain't gonna help your heart.

The answer is to hold up Remember the gospel Take your sins to Christ Repent and seek his power

We're all struggling What I mean is like I'm not excusing this what I'm saying is like nobody in this is thing about prayer and evangelism too

So it's like what a great day at church, right? The two things that are really hard to to receive that we're all filling in evangelism and prayer.

Boom. Boom We got both of them on the same day Well, I'm not trying to beat you up But these are things we need to examine in our lives, right and we need to consider

I'm telling you guys We have a gospel that's big enough to change our hearts in this We have a gospel that's big enough to forgive our sins in this and we have a church

I Believe that it's healthy enough to spur one another on in this discipline in these means of grace verse 152

Well, let me just mention verse 151 for a second But you are near O Lord and all your commandments are true

I kind of skipped verse 150. They draw near who persecute me with evil purpose. They are far from your law

It's just a reality. Listen, I could spend all night on this But as long as you desire desire to stay plugged up in the scriptures you're gonna have those who oppose you and sometimes even because of your faithfulness want to Reproach you or persecute you or maybe even you'll miss out on things

But here's the deal which is better for you. Do you want the worldly people near to you or do you want

God near? Look at verse 151 again. You are near O Lord These people may persecute me.

They may be wrong me They may throw me under the bus as it were, but I know this you're near O Lord You're near to me and that's enough man

If I could just believe that things of Robert Murray McShane say man if I could he didn't say like that, you know, man

But he's like if I could just hear Christ praying for me in the other room. I'd be invincible

Yeah, but this is what we have in the scripture God is near well what are we afraid of afraid of someone ridicule you or stash your tires or harming you and some of these are our

Things that we may say. Well, yeah that does kind of concern me but but listen to me if God is near Who can stand against us?

Paul says it that way in Romans a if God is for us Who can be against us? Lord you're near and all your commandments are true.

You got to ask yourself tonight. Sometimes just take reflect. I believe it I believe the book Genesis to Revelation You better believe it because it's all true

And then he says in one verse 152 long have I known from your testimonies that you've founded them forever

There's God's Word that gives the psalmist insight into God's Word It's interesting how that works, isn't it?

The more we saturate ourselves in the Word of God the more we trust it the more it comes out of us in our

Conversations the more it comes out of us in our prayers to God the more I don't know

I was like that's probably nerdy computer lingo that Alex will tell me I didn't actually say it right but you know the old

I can't even remember the old saying Geico or whatever Garbage in garbage out.

I hope that's right. Whatever you put into the computer. That's what you're gonna get out Let's use something more simple for us Perry County folk

I don't know what the I don't know what the abbreviation would be. But whatever you put in the microwave, that's what's coming out

Right, so you put in a hot pocket you're not getting a fine steak

That's coming out of the microwave You're getting a hot pop a hot pocket and it's gonna have liquid hot magma in the center of it somewhere

Or actually be frozen in the center and then somewhere else it'll be liquid hot magma, but you understand whatever you put in That's what's coming out.

Let me get spiritual in this whatever you put into your heart. That's what's coming out, right? That's what's coming out.

Well, someone says I Long how long have I known your testimonies that you founded them forever.

So as we have this mindset, I know your scriptures I meditate on your scriptures. I put these in my heart when we put these in our heart.

This is what Comes out. I don't know. I don't know if this is helpful for each and I I don't know if part of it

Even really feels like a sermon But this stanza is very fitting into the whole context of Psalm 119 for those that are covenant children of God for those who on this side of the

New Testament Have repented of their sins and came to Christ in faith The Bible is something very precious to us and the

Bible causes us to be a people of prayer We we pray to God We pray for the things that he's called us to pray for we pray for him in times of think

Thankfulness and gratitude we pray for him in times of pain and and and and difficulty on Wednesday morning, which

Monty made the joke today is like when are we gonna know the results of the election? We'll be two days and six weeks from now

All right but a Lord will in on Wednesday morning when you wake up you may have us a Prayer of lament or you may have a prayer of Thanksgiving, but either way either way it goes we should turn our hearts to God now

Bit discombobulated, but let me close it this way tonight. We take the

Lord's Supper You need to be reminded of this The Lord's Supper is not for people who are perfect in their prayer life

Otherwise who would come tonight? You wouldn't and you wouldn't be invited and neither would

I But the Lord's Supper also is not for those who are satisfied in the sin of prayerlessness

You understand So, what do we do? We repent

We take it to the Lord if there are areas in your life that the Holy Spirit landed home tonight

You say you know what? He's right. The text is right. The Scriptures are right. Not that the preachers right the Scriptures, right?

I see the psalmist heart to pray to God My heart's not like that all the time

I've been in a rut and I haven't even really thought about that. The answer tonight is not well I'm not gonna take the

Lord's Supper till I get this right. No No, the answer tonight is to turn from it right to turn from it to remember the gospel

You remember what Jesus did for you? You remember that perfect life? He lived he never struggled in his prayer life

He always prayed perfectly and then he went to the cross and he died for many great sins that you've had

But one of the great sins that you have that he died for is your prayerlessness God the Father punished

Jesus in our place for our prayerlessness. He became prayerless if you will

He became sin, right? I'm just substituting a sin Not in his own self, but on his account prayerless for you and I So I just say to you don't hold on to that sin tonight repent of it take it to God and Let's ask him as a church to be a better people of prayer for his glory

Father we thank you for this stanza. We thank you for Psalm 119 You know with the integrity of my heart that I need you.

I need your grace. I need to be a better prayer and I pray that for our church family too, and I thank you for those in our church who pray

And I pray that all of us would be a people of prayer and that our church Would be a people of prayer