Prayer Night Sermon (Psalm 5 And Prayers Of Lament)

Prayer Night Service on Psalm 5 and Prayers of Lament

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.

Well, hello and welcome again to another prayer night service. Today we're gonna be in Psalm 5 and as you'll remember every single week, we've been basically walking through the Psalms. We've been learning how to pray and we've been allowing the Psalms to show us through their structure, through their grammar, through their history, and through every facet of these Psalms we've been letting them teach us how to pray.

Deliverance From Enemies in the Psalms

Today is gonna be no different in Psalm 5 and David is going to be focused on praying to God for deliverance from his enemies. He's gonna be asking God to help deliver him from his foes and he's gonna go through a five-part prayer called a prayer of lament, which we will talk about in just a moment.

But for starters, let's just acknowledge the simple fact the Psalms have a lot to do with deliverance from enemies. Psalm 1 begins with the way of the wicked contrasted against the way of the righteous.

Psalm 2 traces the rebellion of the wicked people against God, particularly the kings and the rulers of the earth and how Christ is going to overthrow the wickedness in this world. So that Psalm is focused on deliverance from enemies.

Psalm 3 is about the people who've attacked David, the wicked mongrels that have attacked him and he's crying out to God for protection. So that Psalms about deliverance from enemies. Psalm 4 is about how the wicked have slandered David's name and how he's crying out to God for vindication.

So that Psalms about deliverance from our enemies. And then today, as we said, David is gonna go through this five-part Psalm of lament where he's gonna be praying that God directly and specifically would deliver him from his enemies.

This is a major theme in the book of Psalms. It's a major theme in our life as we live in a world that is broken and and we constantly are crying out to God for help in the midst of trials and suffering and pain.

And today, I think the structure of this Psalm will actually be quite helpful for us in learning how to pray. Because David again, he adopts this five-part structure on how to actually come to God and pray when you're asking God to deliver you from your enemies.

And this structure follows the Hebrew pattern called lament. A lament is a humble acknowledgement that things are going wrong in the world, but it's also in the midst of the pain and in the midst of the sorrow.

It is a confident expectation that God is going to deliver you. And a lament typically has five categories. The first is invocation. Before you can come asking God to deliver you, you have to actually walk into the presence of God.

That's what invocation means. You are coming into his presence to seek the true deliverer and to understand what he says and how he's going to help. So you're coming into his presence. The second part of this invocation, or the second part of this prayer for deliverance, or this as we would call it a lament for deliverance, is an acknowledgement of confidence.

We come into God's presence through the invocation and while we're in God's presence, we acknowledge that God is the only one who can help us. He is the one who will come to our aid. We have a confidence and a trust in God.

So that's the second part of what it means to biblically lament. You've come into God's presence and now you're expressing confidence that God is in control and that he alone can help you. The third part of a biblical lament is a petition.

That means that you spend at least half of your time acknowledging who God is, coming into his presence, speaking confidently and boldly that you know that God can do the things that you're asking. You do all of that before you ask God for anything.

But a prayer of lament eventually gets to the point where you ask God for things. You're asking him to deliver you on the basis of a specific situation. You're acknowledging the need before God and you're petitioning him in response to the thing that you're struggling with.

So that's the third section of a typical biblical lament. The fourth section is the actual lament. That's where you're acknowledging the hard thing, the thing that you are in need of being delivered from.

And then finally, a true lament, a biblical lament, ends in praise. And this is true for almost every lament. I think there may be an exception here or there, but almost every biblical lament does not end in sadness.

It ends in gladness and hope and joy because the confidence that we have as believers is if we come into the presence of God, then he will deliver us. If we present our needs to God, then he will answer our prayer.

So the expectation of a lament is always hope and joy and praise. There's no wallowing in the doldrums of depression in a lament. There's no sitting down in our anxieties and saying, well, I don't know if God will save me or not, but let me pray and let me just do this because that's what the Bible tells me to do.

No, a true lament is weeping, crying out to the Lord, but leaving with joy. And how much our prayer life would actually be blessed if we adopted a biblical posture of lament. If we came into the presence of God acknowledging who he is, boldly speaking, confidently that we know who he is, that we trust who he is, and then finally we ask him for the things that we're asking him for.

We lament over the things that we're lamenting for, but we get up off our knees with joy and with gladness, knowing that God is who he said he is and he will do what he said he will do and we can trust him.

So that's the structure of David's prayer and we're going to begin with how he begins with an invocation. He walks into the presence of God through prayer and he acknowledges who God is. This is what he says, verses 1 through 3.

Give ear to my words, O Lord. Consider my groaning. Heed the sound of my cry for help, my King and my God. For to you I pray. In the morning, O Lord, you will hear my voice. In the morning I will order my prayers to you and eagerly watch.

David has bowed his head and he has entered into the presence of the Almighty and he is saying certain things about God. He is approaching God in certain ways that we would consider are right and good and necessary ways to approach this Holy God.

And the question we must ask ourselves in light of what we've just read is, do we approach God like David approaches God? Do we approach God rightly? Do we come into the Deliverer's presence praying the way that David prays?

And we'll see three things here. The first is that David prays urgently, seriously, and confidently to God. Notice what he says. He says, give ear to my words, O Lord. Consider my groaning. Heed the sound of my cry.

David is not praying a sort of routine, rote, memorized, archaic sort of prayer where lifeless, dead, emotionless prayer. David is urgent here. He is serious about the office of prayer. He is confident and bold as he approaches God because he knows who God is.

This is the sort of invocation where David is coming into the presence of God urgently, seriously, reverently, and confidently. There's an example of this in the New Testament. James says of the prophet Elijah that he was a man just like us, meaning that he put his pants on one leg at a time.

He ate his cereal with a spoon. Like he's a man just like the rest of us. But, James says, he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again, he prayed, again, the indication is earnestly here, and the heavens then gave rain and the earth produced its crops.

James ends that example of Elijah saying that the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. You'll see David doesn't come into the presence of God half-heartedly or lifelessly. He comes in urgently.

You'll see the example of James where he says that Elijah doesn't come into the presence of God flippantly or carelessly. He comes in urgently. I think this is teaching us that when we come into the presence of God, when we have a lament that we want to share with God, and we come into God's presence through invocation, that we have to come in urgently and seriously and confidently.

We don't come in as some sort of religious exercise where, well, this is my morning routine. No. We come into the presence of the living God, and we come in urgently because we know who God is and how powerful he is.

That's the first thing. The second thing that David does when he comes into the presence of God in this invocation, he doesn't begin sharing his prayer requests. The first thing he does is that he acknowledges who God is through urgent, serious, and confident prayers, but then he also prays persistently.

Notice the repeated phrase in verse 3. He says, In the morning, O Lord, you will hear my voice. In the morning, I will order my prayer. David is not just forgetting that he mentioned morning. He's not being repetitive accidentally.

He's being repetitively repetitive on purpose. He's essentially, what he's saying is morning by morning by morning, I'm coming into your presence. When David says, In the morning, you will hear my voice.

In the morning, I will order my prayer. He's saying, I'm coming into your presence morning after morning, day after day, moment by moment, morning and evening. I'm coming into your presence persistently.

That's what he says. If you'll notice, the sort of persistence that he brings is also elevated by this phrase, I will order my prayer. That's again in verse 3. Now, what do you mean, David, you're going to order your prayer?

You're going to sit down and arrange it in chronological order? Are you going to put it in this five-fold structure that we're talking about here in the category of lament? Well, maybe that's true. But the Hebrew word underneath this word order means he will, it means presenting a case.

David is coming into the presence of God boldly, urgently, confidently presenting his case before God. He's making an appeal before God on the basis of who God is. He is essentially using courtroom language here to say that he comes into the presence of the mighty judge, the mighty deliverer, who alone can rescue him, and he lays out his case.

That is what David is doing. That's the sort of bold, confident, persistent praying that you and I ought to be doing as well. For instance, the New Testament again gives another example of this in the unjust judge.

This is what Jesus says. There's a woman, a widow, and she comes and she pleads before the judge, and she pleads before the judge, and she comes day and night pleading before this merciless tyrant of a judge, and eventually, just to kind of pacify this woman and give her justice so that she'll leave him alone, this unjust judge gives this woman exactly what she wants because she's been persistent.

Jesus says, how much more so will God, who is righteous and holy and just, give to the one who persistently comes and petitions and prays to him? There's another example. The friend who comes and who knocks on the door late at night, and the man inside the house cries out and says, we're asleep.

Come back tomorrow. We'll help you then. Jesus says, well, if you keep knocking and you keep knocking and keep knocking, even though the friend doesn't want to answer the door, eventually, he will answer the door just because of your sheer persistence.

Well, how much more so God, who isn't, who isn't limited by human rest and who doesn't have to wake up in order to come answer you whenever you're praying, how much more so will God answer you if you are persistent in your prayers?

So the point is, we must be persistent in our prayers as believers because God has promised all throughout scripture that he will not refuse us. And there's so many examples of this. I read a story today about George Mueller, and if you've never read anything about George Mueller, take some time, buy his biography.

It is fascinating the way that God answers this man's prayer. He prays and fog is lifted so that he can get to a preaching engagement. Like he prays and God answers. This is a man who's like Elijah who boldly prays and God does things.

Well, there's this story that is not very highly reported in the life of George Mueller because everybody likes the dramatic answer to prayer. George Mueller prayed and five seconds later, you know, the fog was lifted or whatever, but there's this beautiful example of George Mueller early in his ministry, praying for two of his friends who are lost and he prays to God that they would be saved for 60 years, 60 years of George Mueller's life.

He's down on his knees. He's seen God answer prayer left and right in all these various areas. And not a moment did he become discouraged or frustrated saying, God, why aren't you answering this, this most important prayer for my friend that he would be saved, that he would be converted, that he would come to you and know who you are.

Why aren't you answering that prayer? George Mueller never did that. He prayed faithfully for 60 years and on his final sermon that he ever preached, one of his friends was converted and a year after his death, the other friend was converted.

God answers prayers. The prayer of the righteous availeth much. Persistent prayer affects things in the kingdom of God. Are we patient enough to pray? Are we patient enough to pray for 60 years for the salvation of someone that we love?

Are we diligent enough, persistent enough, bold enough, urgent enough to come into the presence of God like David, praying, knowing that God will answer because he loves us and he cares for us. That's the second thing, praying persistently.

The final thing is praying expectantly. The verse ends like this. I will eagerly watch. David comes into the presence of God. He lays out his case before the judge and he says, all right, I'm going to watch because I know God will answer.

I'm going to watch. I'm going to pay attention. I'm going to take note of this moment and I'm going to check my records on a daily basis because I know God's going to answer this prayer and I can't wait to check it off and say, yep, God answered it.

How frequently, how frequently beloved do we pray and we forget what we've prayed for. We pray as a sort of cathartic experience where we get things off our chest. We go to God like he's the high priest sitting in the booth, uh, where we unload all our miseries onto and we forget that we've asked him for things.

We forget that we prayed for things. How often do we probably, would we be encouraged by answer prayers when we don't even remember that we've prayed for them? My encouragement to us is like David to come into the presence of God urgently, seriously, confidently, and boldly, and to come into the presence of God persistently like the widow praying and praying and praying that God would answer our prayers.

And I would also encourage us to pray expectantly remembering the things that we're praying for, watching like David expectantly. I eagerly watch so that we would see God answering our prayers. We see these three things in the scripture right here in Psalm five that when David in an invocation moment comes into the presence of God, he does these three things.

The text also teaches us that there's three ways that we can pray as we enter into the presence of God. We're not only, there's not only three attitudes of prayer, urgent, persistent, and expectant, but there's also three kinds of prayers that we can pray in those same emotions.

For instance, David says in, in verse one, give ear to my words. So he's praying words. He's praying prayers with actual words and meaning. He's articulating things. He's got his eyes closed and he's, and he's praying things with actual sentences and grammar and syntax and all of that.

That's, that's what we would normally consider prayer. The second thing is that he says is he, the sound of my cry for help. So he's not only praying prayers with words, but he's praying prayers with wordless tears.

Have you ever had those moments where you're praying and you just, you break out in tears and, and you know that you're praying. The spirit of God is, is doing something in you in that moment, but you're not praying with words.

You're praying with tears. David here acknowledges that this is a kind of prayer. Words aren't coming to your mouth, but tears are coming out of your eyes. And, and that is a kind of prayer that the Lord hears.

He'd the sound of my cry for help. Oh God, my cry. The third kind of prayer that we can pray urgently, persistently, and expectantly is, is prayers that where I would just call it, that we lack the words to even pray those moments where we sit in stunned silence, where we don't even know what to say to God, or those moments where a situation is so complex and so difficult.

And so, and so burdensome upon our soul that we don't even have the slightest idea how to begin where we just sit there with a mouth open before the Lord and, and almost like someone has robbed the breath out of our lungs and we can't even begin to form words on our mouth.

That kind of prayer is pleasing to God as well. And we know that that kind of prayer is pleasing to God because in the new testament, God says that we have an advocate who aids us in our prayers even when we can't pray.

David says, Oh Lord, consider my groanings. Paul says in Romans 8 26, do you not know? Or we do not know what we ought to pray, right? The spirit intercedes with us with groans that words cannot express.

So if you think about it, David is asking the Lord to consider his wordless groanings because he doesn't even know what to say anymore. And in the new testament, we see from Paul that the spirit of God is taking those groanings and he himself is groaning on our behalf and praying those things and giving those things over to Christ.

We have an advocate and an aid in our prayer who is helping us and assisting us in our prayer so that whether we pray with words or whether we pray with tears or whether we pray with silence, God is assisting us in prayer so that we can pray urgently so that we can pray persistently and so that we can pray expectantly.

Do you see how all these work together? It's beautiful. Now when we come into the deliverer's presence, we must have a proper relationship with him. We've already said that. David himself is calling out.

He's saying his Lord. He says that twice in verse one and verse three, he calls out to God as his Lord. He calls out to God as his King. He says, my King and my God. He says that in verse two. And if you look at the pronouns here, you're not only seeing three emotions when we pray, which is expectantly urgently and persistently.

You not only see three kinds of prayers, words, tears, and silence. You see that David comes with a personal, intimate and genuine faith saying, this is my God that I'm coming into the presence of. This is my King, my Lord.

See, see the my's there. He's coming into the presence of his personal, intimate, genuine savior, his King. He's acknowledging in this invocation prayer that he's included, that he's a friend with God, that he's in a relationship with God, that this is my God.

He can say that as we'll learn in a moment on the basis of Jesus Christ. But that's how David walks into the presence of God. He, he says that God is his God. He prays three different kinds of prayers with words, with tears and with silence.

And he also prays urgently, persistently and expectantly. So that's what I would say as far as how, what we learned about this invocation prayer. And I hope that those things have been helpful for you.

And I hope that you can implement those particular things into your prayer life as well. As you begin your prayers, as you bow your head and come into the presence of God, I hope that those three things that we just talked about will be an aid to you as you, as you begin your prayers with God, but we don't stay in the invocation moment.

That's the first phase of our prayer. The second phase of our prayer is that we express confidence that God, the deliverer will actually deliver us. We come into his presence and then we acknowledge that he is the deliverer and he will save us.

Confidence in God's Holiness and Mercy

This is what Psalm five, four through seven says. This is where David enters into the second phase of his prayer, which is called confidence. He says, for you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness.

No evil dwells in you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all who do iniquity. You destroy those who speak falsehood. The Lord abhors a man of bloodshed and deceit. But as for me, by your abundant loving kindness, I will enter into your house at your Holy temple and I will bow in reverence to you.

Another example of this is in Psalm 66, verse 18 through 19. If I had cherished sin in my heart, then the Lord would not have listened to me. But since David is saying that I've not cherished sin, I've not done those things.

The Lord will hear me and the Lord will destroy the wicked and the Lord will rescue me in his abundant loving kindness. Do you see the confidence that David has here? David has confidence that God will abolish the wicked and God will deliver the righteous because of who God is in his character.

He has that confidence. That's the second phase of a lament, confidence in God. Now David draws this out in a specific way. He distinguishes himself from the wicked. He gives a sort of taxonomic definition of who the wicked are.

And he begins from general statements and he moves even to more specific statements. He says the wicked, it's a very general statement in verse four. Then he says the arrogance, he's narrowing it and becoming more specific.

It's the arrogant verse five. He also says everyone who does wrong, that's pretty general itself. But then he goes on in verse six to say those who tell lies are the wicked and bloodthirsty and deceitful men are the wicked.

He's identifying with confidence the kind of people that God is going to abolish because he himself even acknowledges how God views sin. And he does this in verse four. He says, God does not take pleasure in evil.

He's saying that I can have confidence coming into the presence of this Holy God knowing that God takes no pleasure in evil. I know God is going to avenge me. I know God is going to abolish the wicked.

I know God is going to punish the evil doer. I know that because God does not take pleasure in the wicked. God is not arrogant and boastful. God is not support the ones who do wrong. God does not tell lies nor support the ones who tells lies.

God is not bloodthirsty and deceitful, but he will bring to doom those who act in those ways. David has a confidence in who God is, that God will destroy the wicked. And he even acknowledges, you've heard probably in church all your life that God loves the center, but hates the sin.

David says that God hates those who do wrong in verse five. Verse five says, God hates all who do wrong. So clearly we've been told wrongly throughout our lives in church when it says that God loves the center, but hates the sin.

No, God hates the center. God has wrath stored up for the center. God has a furious, righteous, holy, never ending anger and furious wrath stored up for the center because there's nothing at all protecting them from the presence and the holiness of God because God takes no pleasure in the wicked.

Therefore he can't take pleasure in those who do wicked things. It says that he hates all who do wrong. That's verse five. It says that he destroys those who tell lies. That's verse six. He says that the Lord abhors, that's even stronger than hatred.

Those who are bloodthirsty and deceitful and who tell lies. God has no passion, no love, no affection for the wicked. And David knows that and is confident in that. And he acknowledges that in this sort of confident way that I know you're going to deliver me God because I know that you hate the wicked.

It's a strong statement from David, but it's a confident and bold statement, which is probably why he could come into the presence of God so boldly in the first place. Remember, he came in urgently, persistently and expectantly.

Why? Because he knows the character of God and he knows that God hates the wicked, but that doesn't lead David to pride. There's many in the world who would charge Christians as being arrogant or thinking that they're better than other people because we're the ones who are saved.

God must love us more than he loves other people. And they say those sort of things when they're trying to accuse Christians of being arrogant. David has the exact opposite reaction. This actually produces humility in David.

As we draw closer to God, just like David, we should grow more sensitive to sin, not more ignorant of it. To be arrogant is what the wicked do. They become ignorant of the effects of sin. They become arrogant and haughty and boastful and prideful and say, my sin's not that big of a deal.

My sin's not that big. Christians who acknowledge the sinfulness of sin, the deadly plague of what sin is, that's not haughty and that's not prideful. That's becoming sensitive to sin. That's expressing a humility in ourself that our sin is offensive to a holy God, which leads to humility.

It leads us to recognize that we in and of ourself are also wicked, that if left to our own devices, that we would be the ones who are thrown away right along with the lot of the wicked, that we would be the ones that God abhors, that we would be the ones that God hates if it were not for his grace and his mercy.

David does not excuse himself in the Psalm by saying, yeah, in comparison to the, to the wicked, I'm pretty great. I'm righteous. I always do everything right. I'm different than the wicked. I'm a good person.

He doesn't say any of that. David pleads for mercy because he's showcasing to us that a relationship with God is not based on our individual merit and our status and our whatever else. It's based on the holiness of God.

The mercy of God and the grace of God. David pleads for mercy in verse seven. He says, but as for me, I've just talked about the wicked and I'm confident that God is going to destroy the wicked. He's going to blow them up in his holy righteous wrath.

I got that. But as for me, verse seven says, by your abundant loving kindness, I think David here was straining for words to talk about how kind God is. He's abundantly loving kind by your abundant loving kindness and mercy.

I will enter the house of God at your holy temple. I will bow in reverence to you. Do you see what David is resting in? He's not resting in his performance. He's not resting in his character. He's not resting in his ability.

He's not resting in his morality. He's not resting in any thing at all that has to do with him. He's resting in God's kindness. He's resting in God's ability to take a center like him who wants to repent, who is, who's eager to repent, who hates his sin, but cannot stop sinning that God will be merciful to that contrite wretch that David is and that he will assist him and help him in his abundant mercy to be able to enter into the house of God and worship.

The juxtaposition that David is making between himself and the wicked is that the wicked have no desire whatsoever to repent. They have a fundamental hatred of God. They have a God complex themselves and the fact that they think that they are the ones who are in charge of their life and in control of everything.

So therefore their idolaters and David is saying, I know how sinful I am. I know how broken I am. I need God's mercy and God's grace. That's where David is saying that that he will be among those who are rescued.

He can confidently say that because he's not resting in his ability or his performance. He's resting in God. That's the difference between the righteous and the wicked. The wicked are wicked because of what they do.

The righteous are righteous because of what God does. That's the difference. Again, David pleads for mercy by your abundant loving kindness. I will enter into your house by no other means while I enter into your house, but by your abundant loving kindness.

We see this sort of juxtaposition of the wicked and the righteous again in the New Testament. The New Testament is so helpful for us as Christians to define these categories for us. And we see this example in a parable that Jesus teaches us about the Pharisee and the tax collector.

The Pharisee who comes to God in prayer. Again, this is a great example for Psalm five, because we're talking about prayer. And he says, God, I thank you that I'm not like these other men, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, tax collectors.

I fast twice a week and I give a 10th of all I get. Amen. Thank you, God. And then he moves on. The tax collector on the other hand, doesn't pray like that. The tax collector is not arrogant or boastful, deceitful.

He's not a liar like the Pharisee who embodies so perfectly what David says in Psalm five, it's uncanny, but the tax collector, the poor tax collector doesn't deny any of that. He is a liar. He is a fraud.

He is a cheat. He is a steal. He's everything and more that should condemn him and damn him before a Holy God. And all he says is God have mercy on me. I'm a sinner. And Jesus tells us, I tell you the truth that this man, the tax collector rather than the other, which is the Pharisee went home justified before God for everyone who exalts himself.

As David says, the wicked do, they will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted. It's Luke 18, 11 through 14. Theologian named Craigie, who wrote a great commentary on the book of Psalms.

He said it like this, though evil persons are excluded from God's presence because of their sin, it does not follow that the Psalmist is admitted into the presence of God by the virtue of his own goodness.

The Psalmist interest into God's house would be based only upon the abundance of God's loving kindness. That is to say it was only God's grace and covenant love towards his people, which made entrance into his presence even remotely possible.

David is not puffed up with pride like the wicked. And that's the reason he can say that God is confidently, I can confidently say that God is going to deliver me because he's trusting in the grace and mercy of God and God will be gracious and merciful.

That's David's confidence. The third section of a good biblical lament is called a petition. You've entered into the presence of God and you've acknowledged who God is. You've also in your confidence, you've acknowledged who you are and how you're a center in need of God's saving grace.

Then he moves on to discuss his particular petition and the first petition comes in verse eight. The second petition comes in verse 10. This is what the first petition says. Oh Lord, lead me in your righteousness because of my foes.

Make your way straight before me. Over half of the Psalm is spent preparing David for his very first petition. He spent most of his time preparing himself in the presence of God before he even asked God to do a single thing.

And the thing that he asked God to do is rooted in humility saying, Lord, I need you lead me in your righteousness because of my foes. Make your way straight before me. Help me to go on the path, the wise path that you want me to go.

Help me to make decisions that are consistent with your will. Help me to live in such a way that I am righteous and I'm not living like the wicked. Help me more to be clean and upright before you and in your presence.

Help me to repent whenever I fall short. David's first petition is not actually for the situation that he's facing. His first petition is about his attitude on the way that he would face it, that he would face it in righteousness, hiding in the shadow of God's righteousness, that he would face it with wisdom.