October 18, 2023
Author: Pastor Mark Bauer
October 18, 2023
To the choirmaster with string instruments. A psalm of David. “Here
my cry, O God listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I called to
you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I,
for you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy. Let me
dwell in your tent forever! Let me take refuge under the shelter of your
wings! Selah. For you, O God, have heard my vows; you have given me the
heritage of those who fear your name. Prolong the life of the king; may
his years endure to all generations! May he be enthroned forever before
God; appoint steadfast love and faithfulness to watch over him! So will
I ever sing praises to your name as I perform my vows day after day.”
Psalm 61
A number of the commentators suggest this psalm was written by David
during a time of exile when he was fleeing from Absalom at the time of
Absalom's rebellion. And while this psalm certainly has specific
application to David, the king, and it describes his prayer to God for
protection during the time of adversity. I would say that there are
words of encouragement for us in this psalm as God's people when we find
ourselves in the midst of adversity or trials. So what I'd like to do
is briefly look at some lessons, some encouragements perhaps that we can
find in the first 4 verses of this psalm when we face adversity and
trial. Some of the headings that I'll use come from an outline by
William Jay.
First of all, what do we learn from this psalm? One
of the things is it guides us and helps us to know when do we pray, when
should we be praying? In this psalm I think we will see that we should
be praying when we face the enemy. We read of this in verse 3, “For you
have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy.” When we face the
enemy we need to remember to come to God in prayer. We need protection
from the enemy and that enemy can be an external enemy. It can be the
world, the world certainly is our enemy; those that seek to persecute
us, those who seek to do us harm. But Satan is also our enemy, he is our
greatest enemy and he seeks to destroy us, he seeks to tempt us to
cause us to sin, to plant seeds of doubt in our mind at times, to even
question the goodness of God during times of adversity. But we not only
have these external enemies, we also need protection as we face our
internal enemies as we fight against our remaining sin, as we fight
against our own selfishness, our pride and our discontentment. So these
are the enemies that we face and when we face these enemies, we need to
know that it is a time that we need to come to God in prayer.
But
also in answer to the question, “When do we need to pray?” I think we
see that we need to pray when our heart is faint. We read of this in
verse 2. It says, “I call to you when my heart is faint.” As we face our
enemies during times of adversity and trial, we may find that our heart
grows faint. We may experience a measure of sorrow, of distress, of
discouragement that can seemingly overwhelm us, causing us to feel as
though our heart is faint, it's weary. We're just almost to the point of
giving up, of experiencing despair in the midst of our trials and
adversity. It's at times like this that we must pray. So I think in
these first few verses of the psalm, we learn ‘when do we pray?’ Well,
we need to pray when we face the enemy. But we also need to pray when
our heart is faint.
Secondly, I would say that in these verses
we also learn, “What should we pray for?” Again, looking at verse 2 we
read these words, “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” Lead me
to the rock. This should be our prayer. We should humble
ourselves and acknowledge our utter dependence upon God and plead to God
that by His Spirit he would lead us to the rock. That rock which is
Christ. And perhaps in times of adversity and trial we may have taken
our eyes off of Christ. Perhaps we've been distracted by the cares and
the concerns and the sorrows and the sufferings that may be present
during our trials. Perhaps, at times we may be even trying to solve all
of our problems on our own, relying on ourselves or looking to others.
But here these words remind us that we need to pray, “Lord, lead me to
the rock.” When in the midst of adversity we should be praying these
words that God would lead us back to Christ. Christ who is the hope of
our salvation; Christ who is our refuge and our strength; Christ who is
our strong tower against the enemy; Christ who is our shelter in the
midst of the storms of life; Christ who has promised us that he will
never leave us nor forsake us; Christ who is the author and the
perfector of our faith. We need to pray to God that He would help us to
take our eyes off of our trials and focus our eyes on our Savior. And
this should be our prayer in the midst of our adversity and trials. We
should say these words as the psalmist said, “Lead me to the rock.” So
in these verses we see, when do we pray? We pray when we face the enemy
and we pray when our heart is faint. What should we pray for? We should
pray that the Lord would lead us to the rock, lead us back to Christ.
But
then thirdly, how should we pray? Well, I think in the words of this
psalm we see that there's a measure of fervency in his prayers. Note in
verse one the psalmist begins with these words, “Hear my cry, O God,
listen to my prayer.” His prayer to God is equated to crying out, crying
out to God. The word cry gives a sense of a passion and earnestness, a
pleading to God. His prayers to God are not lifeless; his prayers are
not just emotionless words that he is speaking, but he comes to God with
great fervency. And in verse 2, we read that he even says, “I called to
you.” He's calling out, he's crying out, as it were, to God for help
during his time of trial and adversity.
But in these verses I
think we also recognize our need to come in humility. We're not looking
to ourselves, we're not looking to others, but as verse 2 says, “Lead me
to the rock that is higher than I.” We're looking to one that is
greater than we are. We're looking to God in verse one, “Hear my prayer,
Oh God.” We are praying to God. We're not looking to ourselves, we're
not looking to others, we come in humility, we direct our cries and our
prayers to God.
How do we pray? We pray with fervency. We pray
with humility, but then also I think in these verses we can also pray
with expectancy. We cry out to God expecting and anticipating that he
will hear our cry, that he will listen to our prayer, that he will
answer our prayer, that he will provide the help, he will provide the
protection that we pray for. Because God has already heard, he has
already answered our prayers in the past. In verse 3 we see, “For you
have been my refuge,” in past tense. God has already been our refuge. We
look to the past mercies of God, the times when he has answered our
prayers in the past. And this should encourage us to come again to God
in prayer at times when we face trial and adversity.
How do we pray? We should be praying with fervency, we should pray with humility, we should pray with expectancy.
So
in summary hopefully these verses help us to see that we need to learn
to pray to God in times of adversity to cry out to him for help; to pray
when our hearts are growing faint and pray that God would lead us to
the rock, help us to focus on Christ our Savior even in the midst of our
adversity. So I hope brothers and sisters that this gives us help to
encourage us to come to God in prayer, even in times of trial and
adversity.
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