Prayer Night Psalm 9:13-20 (Praising God For Future Grace In Prayer)

Expositional Preaching and Expositional Prayer

Thank you for listening to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Wednesday night service that is focused on prayer and walking through the psalms together. We hope that you are blessed and we hope that you will join us as we pray for revival.

Hello everyone and welcome back to another Wednesday night prayer service and I want to begin today with a little bit of an example the Shepherds Church has adopted a philosophy of preaching called expository or maybe you've heard it as Expositional preaching now, what does that mean?

Well, some churches will preach through sermon series where they will take take a particular topic. And then they will they will go through that topic or or sometimes they will just pick a random verse each week.

That was on the pastor's heart and mind and he'll preach through that expository or Expositional preaching is verse by verse preaching through the Bible, which is the best way to preach in the best way for people the congregation to actually learn what the Bible is saying because Every week you're learning about a verse in context.

You're taking it as it comes up in Scripture and there's so many benefits to expositional preaching That we could spend an entire episode on that. But now I want to apply the term Expositional to prayer you see our prayer life often becomes boring and Unimaginative and uninspiring.

When we just try to figure out on our own what we need to pray for maybe life is going okay, and we're like Yeah, hey God. Yeah, it's me again. Nothing else really new going on today but I love you and Amen.

Or maybe we feel like we're praying for the same thing over and over. Yeah, it's me again God. I Fell into that sin again. I'm sorry. I've told you I'm sorry a hundred times. But uh, you know this time.

I'm really sorry this time I really want you to help me. God, you know, you get the point our prayers can become so focused on either the same things or so Dull in the fact that we just don't know what to pray that we need help learning how to pray.

So that's what I mean when I say expositional prayers because the Bible itself Has given you a lot that you can learn and focus on prayer with like. Like for instance when you open up the Psalms, which are which are prayerful songs.

That might be a good way to to summarize the book of Psalms as prayerful songs when you open up the Psalms. There's all kinds of things in a particular chapter that maybe are not at the forefront of your mind today.

But would be wonderful things for you to pray about they they invigorate your prayer. So what I want this time to be and and I'm shifting focus just a little bit because each and every week I've been using this time to preach a sermon on the particular Psalm.

I'd like this actually to become a little bit more instructive. So that you can see what we're doing because if you're not coming to the prayer night on Wednesday. Then you're not seeing what we're doing and my heart is that you would.

Whether you come Wednesday night or not is that you would grow in your ability to pray. I don't want your prayers to become stagnant. I don't want your prayers to become dull and uninteresting and boring and I don't want your prayers to be stifled by.

By not knowing how to pray. Vibrant effective prayer. So when we take the Bible. When we take the Psalms and we partner that with our time of prayer something incredible happens. The Spirit who authored the word is now authoring our prayers and we see an Invigoration happen in our prayers.

I want your prayers to be invigorated. So I want you to understand this concept. So here's what we're gonna do today. We're gonna open up Psalm 9. We're going to examine how each and every part of Psalm 9 and we're only gonna be doing the back half of it last week.

We did the first half of it. But we're gonna see how every part of this Psalm is gonna help us and aid us in our prayer and last night when we did this together as a church. During our Wednesday night prayer service.

We prayed for over an hour and there was never a dull moment. There was never a moment where we were wondering what we were gonna pray about. This method will help you in your time of prayer. It will help you grow in prayer and It could be the most spiritually helpful thing that you learn this entire year.

So let us begin with Psalm 9 just for a moment and let us examine how this Psalm helps us pray. And that's what we're gonna be doing each and every week moving forward. I'm not necessarily gonna be preaching a sermon on these Psalms each week.

I'm gonna be using the Psalms to teach you how to pray. So let's begin. We're gonna start in verse 13, this is what it says. The Lord has made himself known. He has executed judgment in the work of his own hands.

The wicked is snared Selah. The wicked will return to Sheol. Even all the nations who forget God. For the needy will not always be forgotten nor the hope of the afflicted perish forever arise. Oh Lord, do not let man prevail.

Let the nations be judged before you put them in fear. Oh Lord, let the nations know that they are but men Selah. Now scholars universally agree and this is not a difficult thing for you to also figure out as well that Psalm 9 is a is a psalm of praise.

You can go to BibleGateway .com and they have different commentaries that are listed there. You can go to blueletterbible .org. I think is what it is. It's just blue letter Bible and you can find commentaries online there.

You can look at Matthew Henry and Charles Spurgeon and John Calvin and all of these different giants of the faith. You have access to all kinds of different resources so that you can figure out what each of these psalms is all about.

There's also books that you can buy. That are super helpful to help you understand the theme of a psalm. But the theme of this psalm is praise. The whole psalm from beginning to end is a psalm about praise.

It is the first psalm that we have come to in the Psalter. So we're only on Psalm 9 but this psalm is the first psalm that's entirely from start to finish about praise. The other psalms have had elements of praise.

That that you can pick up on for sure. But this psalm is a psalm entirely dedicated to praise. Now last week verses 1 through 12 was praise for things that God has done for us in the past. This week verses 13 through 20 is praise for the things that God will do for us in the future.

The verbs tend to in verses 1 through 12 be past tense verbs. The verbs tend to be in verses 13 through 20 future tense verbs. So that is the difference. So when we get to verse 13, we're looking at praising God for future Delivery for future deliverances when he is going to deliver us from various different things and Let's read the passage one more time in verse 13 and look at the things that David is talking about.

Be gracious to me. Oh Lord see my affliction. So right there, we're praising God for future grace. It says be gracious to me. Oh Lord. That's a future tense. Hope that David is saying in the future Lord.

Please be gracious to me and In the future, I know that you're going to see my affliction so we can we can praise God. We can go to our time of prayer. We can close our eyes right now and we can thank God that he has never-ending grace that he has present grace.

He has past grace and he has future grace. He has future grace for us tomorrow and the next day and the next day to deliver us from temptation. To deliver us from evil to deliver us from the enemy. We can praise God we can say we can say right now God.

Based off of Psalm 9 verse 13. I want to praise you. Because your grace doesn't stop today and it will not stop tomorrow and it will not stop the next day and it won't even stop in eternity. I'm gonna praise you God.

Because you have never-ending grace. And I'm gonna praise you God that you see me that's what it says right after that. Oh Lord see my affliction. I'm gonna praise you God because you know where I'm at, you know my life.

You know who I am you see every detail of my life God. You're not a faraway God. You're not a God who is distant up in the the the cosmos somewhere or above the cosmos and you can't see me. No, you can see me.

You know me and I know that because of Jesus Jesus came to this earth and he walked among us because you're personal and you're Intimate with your creation and you love your creation. I know that you see me.

I know that you see my pain. I know that you see my struggle. I know that you see all of these things and Do you see what I'm doing now and in my prayer? I'm Confessing who God is he's a God who sees and I'm partnering that with praise that God.

I'm praising you because I know this about you. I am acknowledging your character and I'm praising you because of it. I'm praising you because you can see. I'm praising you because you Will deliver me from my afflictions whether it's in this life or it's in heaven.

I'm praising you that you that you will deliver me from those who hate me. That's what the psalm says that you will lift me up that you will deliver me from the gates of death. We see in this passage just in verse 13.

Praising God for future deliverance is that he's that his grace is never-ending we can praise him for that. That he's that he sees us in our affliction we can praise him for that that he's sovereign over our enemies that he will lift us up in this life and Then he will lift us up forever out of death into eternity to his glorious throne face to face in his presence.

We can praise God for all of these deliverances and we can see it right here in verse 13. That's the first section of the psalm is praising God for future deliverances and you could take that. You could take that in one morning and say Today God, I'm just gonna pray through verse 13.

I'm gonna praise you for your future deliverances that you're gonna bring into my life. That could be one day of prayer. The next day of prayer could be verse 14, which is praising God for future declarations.

It says that I may future tense conditional that I may tell of all of your praises. David is blown away that God's future oriented grace Not only delivers him from life and death and enemies. But his future oriented grace is also going to be there to help him share the praises of God.

He's praising God that he gets to praise God. What a novel concept. That you would praise God that tomorrow you're gonna help me by the power of the Holy Spirit praise you. Think about going into your morning of prayer.

How often are you gonna think about a concept like that? You're you're how often you're gonna say God. I thank you that tomorrow I get to thank you. I'm praising you that tomorrow I get to praise you.

How often are you gonna come up with that on your own? You're you're probably gonna do like I do and like everybody else does and you're gonna revert back into your patterns and you're gonna revert back into the things that you always say and the things that you always pray in the and the Things that are most pressing to you in that moment, but when you partner your prayer with Scripture.

You see such a beautiful and novel concept I'm gonna I'm gonna thank God that he's gonna allow me to thank him tomorrow. What a glorious Thing to thank our God for that. He's provided us the grace not to fall away from him the grace.

And the guarantee that tomorrow if we truly are in Christ, then we're still gonna be praising him. I think that's a glorious thing to thank God for what a what a way to start your morning if you say God I'm gonna praise you that I can tell your praises.

He also says that in the gates of the daughter of Zion. I may rejoice may future tense conditional rejoice in your salvation in this section. We see David thanking God for the opportunity to declare his gospel.

Or the opportunity in the future that he knows is gonna happen by the Spirit to praise him. He's thanking God for Zion, which is eschatological Jerusalem. What I mean by that is that's the new Jerusalem that we are gonna stand in one day with Jesus for all of eternity.

The manifestation of that on the earth is the church as it was for him the tabernacle so the gates of Zion is is the gates of the tabernacle that lead into the presence of God, which is Manifest in New Jerusalem perfectly.

Well in in our life. We don't have a tabernacle. We have the church. So we're praising God that hey right now. I'm recording this on Thursday morning. Well, guess what? Sunday's coming and I'm gonna enter into the gates of the church and I'm gonna praise God that I get to be with his Saints and I'm gonna praise God that I get to hear the message of the gospel declared and I'm gonna praise God that I get to praise him with song and with with All kinds of different ways and I'm gonna praise God that in my interactions with other people.

We're gonna encourage one another in the gospel. I'm praising God that Sunday's coming. What a what a thing that we often don't think about is what a grace. It is that God has given us the church that will help us enter into the presence of God on Monday Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday.

As we look forward to Sunday when we actually gather with the Saints. What a what a wonderful thing to pray for as we see David in this particular section. He's rejoicing in his salvation now this word salvation is a funny word because We were saved in Eternity past when God elected us we were saved at the cross when Jesus paid for us.

And we were saved in space and time when the Holy Spirit indwelled us so Salvation can can look back into three past events and we can pinpoint that's when I was saved. So salvation is more beautiful and more glorious and more complicated than we often give it credit for.

Salvation also affects me in a present tense sense because sanctification is my salvation working out in my day-to-day interaction. So I'm currently being saved and then I'm also awaiting the future day of glorification.

When I am saved when I do stand when I will be in the presence of God forever. So past present and future salvation encompasses all of these things. David is actually rejoicing in his future salvation here.

He's rejoicing that one day the pain of this life is gonna be over and I will be in the presence of God forever. What a thing to praise God for. What a thing to lift up your hands in your morning before you go to work or in your car.

Don't close your eyes if you're praying in the car. That is a very important rule that I need to be make you aware of. I know you know that. But as we're praying wherever we're praying whether it's in our car on our work break on our way home.

In our prayer closet in our living room with our family. Whatever it is when we're praying praise God for the future deliverance that you're going to have when you. When you declare praises in front of King Jesus.

Forever in eternity. That's the second section the third section is A section that is not common to the modern mind. It's something that you probably don't incorporate into your prayer time. I certainly really.

Struggle to incorporate these kinds of prayers into my prayer time. But the reason why the Bible is so important to bring to bear on our prayer time is that it challenges us to pray about Biblical things that we often don't pray about.

This is to praise God for the future downfall of the wicked nations. So we've prayed so far about praising him for future deliverances for future declarations. And now we're talking about future downfalls of the wicked nations.

Verse 15 through 17 says this. The nations have sunk down in the pit which they have made in the net which they hid their foot has been caught. The Lord has made himself known. He has executed judgment in the work of his hands.

The wicked is snared the wicked will return to Sheol even all the nations who forget God. David is saying here that God can be should be and will be praised on the basis of his wrath against evil. Last night in prayer one of our one of our guys was saying that the wrath of God is an Attribute of God and because the wrath of God is one of his attributes.

His wrath is beautiful. His wrath is glorious his wrath is it reveals his character and his character is is Perfect. So when we think about the wrath of God against evil, these are things that we can praise God for.

I mean do we actually believe that the angels in heaven stop praising when God is pouring out his wrath on a wicked nation? Absolutely, not. They're praising him for his justice. They're praising him for his for his Glory.

They're praising him for for his discernment and how he delivers the wrath of God. Do we think that the angels were were forgetting to praise God when the wrath for Christians and for sinners was poured out on Christ and that we were raised to new life.

The Bible says that the angels in heaven rejoiced when one center is found. The reason that they're found is on the basis of Christ. So if heaven is praising God Because of God's glorious and beautiful wrath then we his creatures can praise God for his glorious wrath.

Now, this is complicated because We don't want to go around and and be praising God for what we think future wrath should be. Like we don't want to look at different politics politicians different Nations and say God I'm praising you that you're going to destroy X country or Y country or X politician or You know that person in my life that that I really don't like I'm praising you that you're going to destroy them.

You see that's inappropriate for us because we don't know the future Nineveh Should have been destroyed but God determined that he was going to send his grouchy prophet Jonah. To preach the gospel because he wanted to declare the glory that he can save anyone.

His wrath deserve or the the Ninevites deserved his wrath. But they got his grace because God decided to save them. So we don't want to make any assumptions on who God is going to destroy. We deserve to be destroyed.

So that should cause us to at least be humble, right? We want to praise God though. Because his decisions are perfect and good. We want to pray for our nation to repent. Absolutely, we want to pray for our politicians to repent we want to pray for revival to happen in this country.

But if we begin to see the wrath of God being poured out in this country this nation falling apart. Invasions by other countries the downfall of our economy, you know, you can go on and on and on. When if we begin to see those things we know that God is good that he is glorious that he is gracious and that his judgments are right and true and We can praise him for that.

I think just acknowledging His his purposeful sovereignty in your morning prayer would be a wonderful thing to say God I trust you with the state of this country. I'm not gonna worry and and make myself sick over the fact that this country is not what it used to be and I'm not gonna reminisce until I make Myself sick about what it was in the 80s or 90s or the 70s and I'm and I'm not gonna.

I'm not gonna spend my time Moaning and groaning over this country because God I know you're good. You're beautiful. You're glorious. You're in control and I'm gonna spend my time focused on you. That's the third section praising God for the future downfall of wicked nations and for the future dominion of his kingdom because the reason the nations are being put under the feet of Christ is so the kingdom of Christ can rise up in this earth and Spread out to all the nations.

That's what we're waiting on. We're not waiting on an Antichrist to rise up we're not waiting on a mark of the beast from a vaccine. We're waiting on the nations to be discipled. We're waiting for the gospel to be declared throughout all the earth and then the end will come.

That's what Jesus said. So we praise God that his church is going to continue to advance Through you and through I and through the declaration of the gospel. The final section is we're gonna praise God for the future final destinations.

For the righteous they will be in heaven and we praise God that he has found a way through Jesus to save and redeem sinners. We also praise God That the wicked are punished. Verse 18 says. For the needy will not always be forgotten nor the hope of the afflicted perish forever.

We praise God that those whom he has delighted to save will not always be forgotten. But will forever in heaven be remembered in his glorious grace. The afflicted will not perish forever. What a phrase.

You may be afflicted by physical mental emotional spiritual and all kinds of other afflictions, but you will not perish forever. You're gonna die you're gonna be buried cremated or Maybe you fall off a boat in the middle of the ocean and you're eaten by fish.

Whatever your end may be. You're gonna die here on this earth, but you're not gonna perish forever. Your death is not gonna end in death. Your death is gonna end in life. Resurrection and eternity if you're in Christ for the wicked.

It says arise. Oh Lord. Do not let man prevail that the nations be judged before you put them in fear. Oh Lord, let the nations know that they are but men. Our prayer is that conviction would come to the nation so they would realize that they're not God.

They have no power over God and that they are but men. We pray that they would repent. We pray that they would become part of the community of God through the Church of Christ but if not. We also praise God that his justice and his judgments are pure and true and we trust him with eternity.

Here's four ways that we talked about this morning four ways that you can learn to pray. You can learn to Pray that our praise God for his future deliverances. You can praise God for future declarations of praise that he's going to author in you by the power of the Spirit.

You can praise God for the future downfall of Nations and the wicked and the evil in this world and you can praise God for future destinations your future destiny in heaven if you're if you are in Christ and The future destiny of hell for those who have opposed him.

These four things come right out of the text. These four things come right out of the Bible and there are four things actually. That we might not be inclined to pray about. That's why I wanted to walk through this with you this morning.

I hope that this passage will help you in your prayer in your time with God and Until next week when we look at Psalm 10 I hope that your prayer life grows and is blessed and is strengthened by partnering with it with the word.

God bless you.