“The Lord’s Prayer in the Psalms” – Protection – Psalm 140

I have some questions for you.  Is everything good that happens to you a gift from God?  Is everything bad that happens to you an attack of the Devil?  How do you know?  Do you believe in luck and if so, is there good luck and bad luck or are these good and bad spiritual forces?  I know, it’s getting pretty deep around here quickly, isn’t it?

Is God sovereign – meaning, is God in charge of this world, this universe, this church, you?  If God is in charge, do we still have free will or are we puppets that just think we have free will because God wants us to think that?  Those are some deep questions, that’s for sure and I’m not going to answer any of them because, partly, I want you to have something to talk about over lunch today, but mainly because I don’t know the answers to most of them.

When people ask me those kinds of questions, I’m usually pretty quick to quote Isaiah 55:8 that says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.  I’m fine not understanding all there is to know about how God works because if I could understand Him completely, He wouldn’t be much of a God, right?

I will say that I know that God is sovereign and while not everything that happens is His will, like sin, for instance, but His overall will is going to be done. Job 42:2 says, “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” We know that God can do anything He wants.  He gives and He takes away and He doesn’t have to ask our permission, does He?

But there really is a devil and he is called the prince of this world so evidently he must be pretty powerful as well.  Would you agree to that?  I hope so. I don’t know about you individually but this church has been hammered on by the devil.  He has tried to kill us financially and relationally, by trying to disrupt our unity and our good name.  He has tried discouragement, pride, job-loss, job-change, sickness and even death.  He has tried storms (just ask Carol).  He has tried to confuse us with lies that sound truthful.  We’ve had the cops disrupt our service.  We have had drunks disrupt our service and almost had a fistfight once or twice with some crazy women.  And when that doesn’t work, he gets the sound system to go on the fritz and when all else fails, he will lull you to sleep in the pew with a lullaby.

So, I guess we are doing what we are supposed to be doing but it’s hard.  It’s real hard.  It’s hard because Satan, while not as powerful as God, is more powerful than we are.  He’s stronger, bigger, faster, meaner, tougher and he has been doing this for a long time so he knows what works and what doesn’t.  He knows how to push our buttons.  He knows our weaknesses and our strengths and he hates us so the only thing that keeps him from prowling around and devouring us is the mighty right hand of God.

We are finishing up our look at the Lord’s Prayer in the Psalms and we come to the last line of the Lord’s Prayer that says something we have all said a hundred times but we might not really understand.  So, turn first to Matthew 6 and let’s read verses 9-13 but our focus will be on verse 13 and then we will go over to the Book of Psalms and get an illustration of what that part of the prayer should sound like.

We know that the Lord’s Prayer is a model prayer but not necessarily a prayer to be repeated over and over.  It is a skeleton that we are to flesh out with our own prayers so we get the model from Matthew and the examples from Psalms.  So, let’s read it from Matthew 6:9-13 right now and see how Jesus said we are to pray.

“This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, ¹⁰ your kingdom come,
your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. ¹¹ Give us today our daily bread. ¹² And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors. ¹³ And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”

As I have studied the Lord’s Prayer for the last few weeks, every week I think, “Well, obviously this part of the prayer is the most important.” So, as we come to the last part, I have thought the same thing and I finally just concluded that Jesus just really knew how to pray! In four sentences He has summed up everything we need to pray for and how it should be done.

We should start with praise, praising God just for who He is and what He has done.  We should ask God, the Creator and Provider of all things to provide what we need to survive and even thrive in this world and the next.  It should break our hearts but we should then ask God to forgive us of all our sins and then accept that forgiveness that leads to joy and freedom.

Now, lastly, Jesus tells us we should pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”  We know, though, that God doesn’t tempt us to sin.  James 1:13 makes that plain when it says, “When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.” The misunderstanding comes because, while the word “temptation” is correctly translated, the Greek word originally used could mean “temptation” or “trial”.

But while James also tells us to “consider it pure joy when we go through trials” the meaning of Jesus is, “Lord, protect me from anything that might lead to sin, even if it is a God-given trial.” Both lines of verse 13 have to do with avoiding sin, whether by our old sin nature or from Satan himself.  Yes, we need trials to grow and mature and prove God’s grace but our prayer should be that God would protect us from the very worst thing that could happen to us and that is…sin!

When we ask God for protection, we usually mean for Him to protect us from sickness or car wrecks or Hillary being president but what Jesus says we should pray for is protection from sin.  Last week we saw that King David understood how to go to God for forgiveness in Psalm 51 and this week we see that David also knew how to ask for protection.  Well…he kinda knew. Okay, he didn’t really know but it’s not his fault and we are going to use Psalm 140 as an example any way of how to ask God for protection.

Turn to Psalm 140 and let’s read through it once just like David wrote it.

¹ Rescue me, Lord, from evil men; protect me from the violent,² who devise evil plans in their hearts and stir up war every day. ³ They make their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s;  the poison of vipers is on their lips.⁴ Keep me safe, Lord, from the hands of the wicked; protect me from the violent,
    who devise ways to trip my feet.
⁵ The arrogant have hidden a snare for me;
    they have spread out the cords of their net
    and have set traps for me along my path.⁶ I say to the Lord, “You are my God.” Hear, Lord, my cry for mercy. ⁷ Sovereign Lord, my strong deliverer,
    you shield my head in the day of battle.
⁸ Do not grant the wicked their desires, Lord;
    do not let their plans succeed.⁹ Those who surround me proudly rear their heads;
    may the mischief of their lips engulf them.
¹⁰ May burning coals fall on them;
    may they be thrown into the fire,
    into miry pits, never to rise.
¹¹ May slanderers not be established in the land;
    may disaster hunt down the violent.¹² I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor
    and upholds the cause of the needy.¹³ Surely the righteous will praise your name,
    and the upright will live in your presence.

Now, does anybody see any problem with that prayer for us today?    Should we pray similar prayers?  Should we pray that our enemies have burning coals fall on them and be thrown into Hell? Because that is what David is praying here.  This is what is called an imprecatory prayer.  David is famous for this kind of prayer and it is the kind of prayer almost all of us have wanted to pray at one time or another. 

The problem is that this is not exactly the prayer we are to pray.   David, and everybody else in the Old Testament didn’t really have a good understanding of Satan like we do today.  The scriptures had not been written showing them that there was an evil spiritual being behind sinful man and they didn’t have Ephesians 6 that tells us that our battles are not against flesh and blood so David was doing the only thing he knew to do as he prayed for God’s protection.

That passage in Ephesians 6 (verse 12) tells us specifically that our battles are no against flesh and blood but they are against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  Now if we substitute those satanic forces for what David calls evil men, then our prayer is powerful and effective…and biblical and that’s what we want.

But maybe you think it’s not all that important to pray for protection against satanic forces like that.  You’re not demon-possessed.  Is it really necessary? Well, first, Jesus told us to pray this way and that should be good enough but He did so for a reason.  You may not be demon-possessed but do you ever feel depressed?  Do you ever feel discouraged?  Do you ever have impure thoughts or bad thoughts against somebody else or even yourself?  Are you tempted to go back to that old habit that God has delivered you from?  The question is, are you ever tempted to sin?

Well, some of that may happen because we are sinful and fallen mankind but that temptation doesn’t come from God so it ultimately and predominately comes from Satan and his minions, the authorities, powers and dark spiritual forces of the evil one.

So, let’s go back and re-read Psalm 140, substituting those names for what David calls evil men.  I’m not adding to or taking away from scripture.  I’m just using this as an example of how we should pray when Jesus tells us we should pray for protection from sin. Okay, let’s go.

Rescue me, Lord, from the powers of this dark world,  protect me from the violent demons,
² who devise evil plans in their hearts
    and stir up war every day.
³ They make their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s;
    the poison of vipers is on their lips.⁴ Keep me safe, Lord, from the hands of the wicked spiritual forces;  protect me from the violent satanic authorities, who devise ways to trip my feet.
⁵ The arrogant evil rulers have hidden a snare for me; they have spread out the cords of their net
    and have set traps for me along my path. ⁶ I say to the Lord, “You are my God.”
    Hear, Lord, my cry for mercy.
⁷ Sovereign Lord, my strong deliverer,
    you shield my head in the day of battle.
⁸ Do not grant the wicked dark forces their desires, Lord; do not let their plans succeed. ⁹ Those satanic spiritual forces who surround me proudly rear their heads; may the mischief of their lips engulf them.
¹⁰ May burning coals fall on them;
    may they be thrown into the fire,
    into miry pits, never to rise.
¹¹ May slanderous devils and demons not be established in me or in Christ Fellowship;
    may disaster hunt down the violent and evil spiritual powers. ¹² I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor, the addicted and the incarcerated and upholds the cause of the needy.
¹³ Surely the righteous in our church will praise your name, and the upright in Wise County will live in your presence.

Amen and Amen!

Now, that’s a powerful prayer and an example of how we should pray when we are asking God for His protection.  If you think that is over the top or being too dramatic by talking about devils and demons then why does Jesus tell us to pray deliver us from the evil one?  Why does it say in 1 Peter 5:8 that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking to see whom he may devour?  Ephesians 6 lays it out plainly that these are our enemies.

All we can do is acknowledge that God is the Protector.  We can’t beat Satan and his minions on our own. This prayer is an example, like every aspect of the Lord’s prayer is an example, of simply acknowledging God’s omnipotence and infinity and of our impotence and finite-ness, if that’s a word.

We go to God with praise because He is God and we are not.  We ask for provision because He is the Provider and we are not.  We request pardon for our sins because He is the Savior and we are not and we ask for protection from sin and everything evil that would hurt us because He is the Protector and we are not.

That’s the Lord’s Prayer for us today so let’s do that right now.  We are about to take the Lord’s Supper so it is fitting that we would prepare ourselves as Jesus has taught us.  Let’s bow our heads and close our eyes and just spend some time praying as we have learned.  Praising God for his grace and His mercy, His love and forgiveness. 

Now, thinking about all that God has done in our lives, we ask Him for continued blessings of provision, making us content with what we have, acknowledging that He is the Provider of all good and perfect things. Also, as much as it might pain us to do it, we need to come before God humbly and ask Him for forgiveness of all our sins.  Name those sins to Him right now and turn from those sins, acknowledging that it was that sin that put Jesus on the cross.

We end our prayer as Jesus taught us by asking for His continued protection from Satan and all the evil forces of this world that surround us and hammer on us every day.  Lord, keep us strong in the power of your name and through the Holy Spirit keep us from sin.  We ask all these things in the name of Jesus, our Redeemer, Sustainer, Deliverer and King.  Amen.

“The Lord’s Prayer in the Psalms” – Pardon – Psalm 51

Preparing this sermon this week has been a struggle for me.  Not because I have been too busy or too lazy or anything like that, but it has been a struggle for a couple of reasons.  One reason is kind of silly but the other reason I hope you will understand.

We are continuing our study of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 by looking at illustrations of applicable prayers through the Psalms and we have come to the part of the Lord’s Prayer that says, “Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.”  I knew immediately when preparing for this series that I would use Psalm 51 as the illustration for this because it is such a good model for how our prayers for forgiveness and pardon should be.

The problem is that David is the one asking for forgiveness in this psalm and, as most of you know, I have always felt that David and I were friends.  That is silly enough, I know.  King David lived thousands of years ago and thousands of miles away…and was a king.  He and I are not exactly running buddies and yet, because I grew up reading about David growing up I felt we had a lot in common.  Then as an adult I read about him as an adult and I just felt a kinship to him.  I like his warrior spirit and I appreciate his passion for whatever it was he was doing.

So, when he is caught in a huge batch of sin, I’m embarrassed for him.  Oh, I appreciate the Bible’s truthfulness and candor and it ultimately helps me greatly to know what happened and the consequences that came from it but as his friend, I am embarrassed for David.  I have a friend right now who is in the middle of rebellion against God, the church and his friends and when people ask me about him, I don’t want to talk about it because I am embarrassed for him.

Anyway, I know it’s silly, but I hope you can understand that part of my struggle to get through this message.  The other reason I have struggled is simply because I have struggled with forgiveness in the past myself.  Is there anything harder than forgiving someone, especially someone who not only doesn’t care or doesn’t want to be forgiven but what they did, they did on purpose to hurt you?  That’s so hard!

It is also hard for me to ask God for forgiveness sometimes.  Do you ever feel this way?  I’m the one who made the choice to sin.  I made the choice to disobey God and to hurt God and grieve the Holy Spirit and not only that but I have made this choice for the zillionth time and I don’t want to have to haul my nasty old self into His holy throne room again and ask Him AGAIN for forgiveness.  I’m sure I’m the only one to ever feel that way.

You know, I can somewhat conceive of God’s omnipotence because I have a little bit of power.  I can walk and talk and even open a bag of chips by myself now so you can say I have some power, right?  I have some degree of understanding about God being love because I love, at least a little bit.  I know; I have knowledge about a few things – very few – but I can grasp some little sense of God being all-knowing.  I am creative, as you are, and so I can conceive of God’s incredible creativity but because my forgiveness is so limited, I struggle with understanding God’s limitless forgiveness.

In the back of my mind, I think that because I wouldn’t forgive me if I were God that surely this time is when God decides enough is enough and He is going to teach me a lesson and today is the day He rightfully thumps me off this planet and straight into Hell where I belong!  So, I have struggled this week with this topic and I hope you can understand why.

Maybe forgiveness is the hardest thing because forgiveness is the most important thing.  I heard it said that if our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator; If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist; If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist; If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer; But our greatest need was forgiveness, so God sent us a Savior. (http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/f/forgiveness.htm)

It's good to be loved.  It’s good to be appreciated.  It’s good to be respected but it is vital to our spiritual, mental and even physical health that we forgive and are forgiven.  Do you have any idea the toll that guilt takes on a person’s mind and body?  It is a type of stress with no good outlet except forgiveness and forgiveness is hard to give and hard to accept.  People will do anything to not feel guilty anymore.

I heard of a guy who robbed banks but felt so guilty about it he went to a psychiatrist for help.  A few months later his friend asked him how he was doing and he said he was completely cured!  His friend said, “That’s great!  So, no more bank robbing for you, huh?”  The guy responded, “Oh, I still rob banks all the time.  I just don’t feel guilty about it anymore.”  That’s how the world defines cured.  They just do whatever it takes to not feel guilty.

That is exactly what is happening when you start blaming somebody else for your own problems.  That’s what is happening when you deflect responsibility or point out somebody else’s problems.  It makes you not feel as guilty and you don’t have to go to God for forgiveness.  That is exactly what David was trying to do in 2 Samuel 12 when Nathan the prophet first came to David.  Nathan made up a story about a rich man who killed his poor neighbor’s one little ewe lamb and ate it and David was furious when he heard the story. “That man must die because he did such a thing and had no pity.”  Then, referring to David’s multiple sins with Bathsheba and her husband, Nathan simply replied, “YOU are that man.”

In Matthew 6, verse 12 it says in the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.”  Two weeks ago, we saw that our prayers are to begin with praise if we really want our prayer life to be powerful and effective and we saw just how important that was.  Last week we saw how important it is to ask God for His provision for everything we have and everything we are based on His grace and mercy.  This week it can’t be stressed enough the importance of asking God for forgiveness.

It is something I’m afraid we all take too lightly.  We give it a sentence or two and basically tell God to forgive us of some vague issues we have and go about our business of asking Him for what we really want but David knew better.  When David became convicted of his sin, he was broken-hearted toward God.  He knew he was sinful and dirty and he felt crushed.  It was hard to breathe when he finally came to his senses and asked God for forgiveness and when he did, he wrote the 51^st Psalm.  Let’s turn there.

There are 5000 sermons that could easily be preached on this passage and I don’t pretend to think we will do it justice today but nowhere is there a better model for our prayer for pardon than right here.  David gets it.  He understands what it means to be in debt to Almighty God and how to ask Him for forgiveness of that debt.  We need to read the whole psalm, from verse 1-19 and as we do, think of how you might better come to God for forgiveness as well.

¹ Have mercy on me, O God,
    according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
    blot out my transgressions.
² Wash away all my iniquity
    and cleanse me from my sin.

³ For I know my transgressions,
    and my sin is always before me.
⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned
    and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
    and justified when you judge.
⁵ Surely I was sinful at birth,
    sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
⁶ Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
    you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

⁷ Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
    wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness;
    let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
⁹ Hide your face from my sins
    and blot out all my iniquity.

¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God,
    and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence
    or take your Holy Spirit from me.
¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation
    and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

¹³ Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
    so that sinners will turn back to you.
¹⁴ Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
    you who are God my Savior,
    and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
¹⁵ Open my lips, Lord,
    and my mouth will declare your praise.
¹⁶ You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
    you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
¹⁷ My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart
    you, God, will not despise.

¹⁸ May it please you to prosper Zion,
    to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
¹⁹ Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
    in burnt offerings offered whole;
    then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Even if you don’t necessarily consider David your friend like I do, that is hard to read.  It should be hard to read.  It should be hard to read because it should pain us to have to ask for forgiveness.  That is not something that is done half-heartedly.  In fact, it should break your heart to have to go to God to ask for forgiveness because we should remember the basis for which we are forgiven and that is the cross of Jesus Christ.  Hebrews 9:22 says, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

It was that sin that put Jesus on the cross; no greater sacrifice could be paid for the debt that we owe and nothing was ever more needed than a provision for our forgiveness. So, while it should be painful to read, I want us to also see in just a minute the joy, the confidence and the restoration that also comes with repentance and forgiveness.

We will go into more detail with this psalm tonight but this morning I want us to see what true repentance is and also what the effects of it are.  Look at verse 1 again and notice, not only what it says but also what it doesn’t say.  David goes into the holy throne room of the Creator, the Redeemer, the Sustainer and Deliverer and says, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love and according to your great compassion.

Notice that he doesn’t say, “Have mercy on me because I’m such a swell guy” or “because it won’t ever happen again” or “because I’m a king” or anything else like that having to do with David.  He simply throws himself on the mercy of God – because of who God is and because of God’s character.  This prayer, like the Lord’s Prayer can only truly be prayed by you when you know and understand who God is and who you are.

That is so important it may very well be the secret to life itself.  When you know who God is and who you are, your prayer life will change dramatically.  Your giving will change.  Your attitude will change.  Forgiveness comes easier, sinning becomes harder and praise and worship will flow out of you like foam from a shaken-up Dr. Pepper.

But it begins with asking God to forgive you based on who He is and not who you are.  Notice also that David doesn’t mince words.  He calls his sin “sin”.  It’s interesting that he also calls it transgression, iniquity, evil, bloodguilt and also sin.  He doesn’t make excuses for it or try to make it sound less offensive.  He doesn’t say it’s a difficulty or an issue he is working on or a slip-up, a character flaw or an oopsie.  For David it was adultery, murder, lying and cover-up to say the least.  It was horrible but all sin is horrible.  Whatever your sin is, don’t try to sugar-coat it to God.

He already knows and as painful as it is, He wants you to admit it and agree with Him that it is sin.  That is literally what confession is.  It is agreeing with God that you have displeased Him and while that is a painful process to go through, it is the process by which you find freedom and joy.  Let me explain.

The first twelve verses of this psalm are David confessing, repenting and asking for forgiveness.  The remaining seven verses are David accepting that forgiveness which is almost as incredible as the forgiveness itself.  He ends this section by asking God to do a big thing and create a pure heart in him in verse 10 but do you see the change that comes over him in verse 12?

He continues in perfect confidence that his prayer has already been answered and now David asks for the joy of his salvation to be restored.  Now, if you went to the county jail over there in Decatur and confessed to a crime, what would they do?  They would lock you up, right?  That’s what you would deserve, isn’t it?  But when you go to God, the righteous Judge who David calls justified in verse 4 and you confess your sin and agree with Him that you were wrong, what does God do?  He forgives you and gives you freedom!

His forgiveness is freedom from guilt.  In verse 14 David prays, “Save me from blood guilt, oh God!” When we truly come to God and confess, repent and ask for forgiveness, God’s forgiveness brings freedom from guilt and a restoration of the joy that comes with restored fellowship with God.

Notice that David has confessed his sin and asked forgiveness of his sin but he has also turned away from it which is called repentance.  He’s not just sorry he got caught.  He actually has a plan for not ever doing it again.  First, he asks God to cleanse him.  Then he asks God to create in him a new heart, a pure heart.  That word “create” is what God did in Genesis when He created the universe from nothing.  Then David asks God to give him a willing spirit to sustain him (v.12).

David knew he was a sinner by birth and by choice and so he is asking God to cleanse him, forgive him, change him and keep him changed.  Then David says he will forever praise God for what He has done. Then his tongue, his lips and his mouth will praise and worship God in joy and freedom.

Then David lived happily ever after, right?  Well…there are actually two things to remember about forgiveness as we close.  The Bible says in 1 John 1:9 that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Period.  That’s the truth.  But there are still consequences of sin.  David is the poster boy for BOOCOD.  His life is the perfect example that there are benefits of obedience and consequences of disobedience and the consequences rarely affect just the sinner.  They almost always spill over into the lives of the ones we love the most.

David’s life was marked by heartache and grief because of his sin with Bathsheba and so were the lives of his family.  There is no getting around that.  He lost a child.  The others were rebellious.  His wives were jealous.  Don’t you hate it when your wives get jealous?  Yea, David had that.  So, that is one thing we need to remember about forgiveness is that there will always be consequences.

For the second thing to remember, I want us to actually go back to the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 for just a quick second because Jesus actually has more to say on the subject of forgiveness.  Notice in Matthew 6, verse 12 exactly what Jesus says, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”  He is saying that we should ask for forgiveness with the same measure that we have forgiven others.  Uh, oh!

Then in verses 14 and 15 Jesus continues this thought.  ^14” For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”  When we sin against God, there is immediately a barrier put between us that keeps us from fellowshipping and being right with Him and it is the same with other people when they sin against us.

It is what makes a Christian a Christian that we, more than any other people, are known for our love and forgiveness.  Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” We don’t deserve God’s forgiveness but isn’t it great when we get it and get to feel that freedom and joy again? It’s the same when we forgive others.  Maybe they don’t deserve it but neither do we.

Now, hear me, my dear and precious church that I love.  Nothing will kill a church faster than unforgiven sin.  Whether between you and God or you and another person, there is NO room for unforgiveness.  I don’t care who did what to whom and who said what to…I don’t care.  Either ask for forgiveness, grant the forgiveness or get out and stop calling yourself a Christian while you give Jesus a bad name.

Trust me.  I understand how hard forgiveness is!  It is the hardest thing in the world but it is the most important thing as well and we have a model for what it looks like in the 51^st Psalm and we have a mandate to do it from the One who has forgiven us.  Let’s go to God right now and start by telling Him what David said in Psalm 139:23-24.  ^“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. ²⁴See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Do you mean that?  Let’s bow our heads and close our eyes as the music plays and really do business with God this morning. Do you have a relationship with Him through His Son Jesus?  Start today by confessing your sins, repenting of them and turning away from them.  Then ask Him for forgiveness.  Name your sins.  Call them what they are.  Go honestly to God and then accept His forgiveness and the joy and freedom that comes with it.  Do that right now.

“The Lord’s Prayer in the Psalms” – Provision – Psalm 86:1-4

After the Korean War ended, South Korea was left with a large number of children who had been orphaned by the war. We’ve seen the same thing in the Vietnam conflict, in Bosnia, and in other places. In the case of Korea, relief agencies came in to deal with all the problems that arose in connection with having so many orphan children. One of the people involved in this relief effort talked about a problem they encountered with the children who were in the orphanages. Even though the children had three meals a day provided for them, they were restless and anxious at night and had difficulty sleeping. As they talked to the children, they soon discovered that the children had great anxiety about whether they would have food the next day. To help resolve this problem, the relief workers in one particular orphanage decided that each night when the children were put to bed, the nurses there would place a single piece of bread in each child’s hand. The bread wasn’t intended to be eaten; it was simply intended to be held by the children as they went to sleep. It was a “security blanket” for them, reminding them that there would be provision for their daily needs. Sure enough, the bread calmed the children’s anxieties and helped them sleep. (Ligonier.org)

Let me ask you a question.  How well do you sleep?  Oh, I know some of you have physical problems that keep you from sleeping well.  Your back hurts or your knees hurt or something else but most of us don’t have to worry about where our next meal is coming from or if we will be able to eat tomorrow.

If you do, we have a food pantry just for that reason and we would love to help you with that problem.  See any church member after the service and they will help you with that.  But for most of us, we go to sleep knowing that there is at least something in the cabinet or the fridge that we can eat tomorrow.  God has blessed us by providing our next meal and so when we read the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew chapter 6, we often skip over the part about the daily bread without much regard but a closer study of what that means could very well change how we pray and even break the barrier that keeps our prayers from being as powerful and effective as they should be.

So, as we continue with our focus on the Lord’s Prayer, let’s look at it again in Matthew chapter 6, verses 9-13 and we will focus today on verse 11 but we will then get a good look at an example of it in the book of Psalms.  I know you have it memorized but let’s read again the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6:9-13.

"This, then, is how you should pray: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, ¹⁰your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. ¹¹Give us today our daily bread. ¹²And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. ¹³And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'

¹¹Give us today our daily bread.  Sounds pretty simple, right?  I’m asking God to provide me with something to eat.  It seems the simplest of all of them and yet interpreters have given any number of meanings to it.  Some people say it is actually referring to the Lord’s Supper or Communion.  We know that the Lord’s Prayer is often used in conjunction with the Lord’s Supper and rightfully so and some people say this petition is meant to mean the spiritual food a person gets from that ordinance.

Other people say this is talking about the Word of God which is the bread of life for believers.  Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 that says, “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.”  We know that the Bible is truth and we feed on it to sustain us every day like hungry people eat bread, or, as I heard the other day, like a fat kid eats cake. Christians feed on the Word and we are thankful for it.

But then some people interpret this verse to mean that bread stands for Jesus Himself.  In John 6, Jesus referred to Himself as “the bread of life” and as such we should be sustained and strengthened by the Living Bread.  What more do we need besides Him?

In my mother’s favorite hymn, All That Thrills My Soul Is Jesus, the fourth verse says,

“Every need His hand supplying,

Every good in Him I see;

On His strength divine relying,

He is all in all to me.

All that thrills my soul is Jesus,

He is more than life to me”

So, is the verse referring to the Lord’s Supper, the Bible or Jesus Himself?  In my opinion: yes!  Yes, and more!  It is referring to everything we need to survive and thrive in this world and the next and all of it comes from the merciful and gracious hand of God and when we realize that and even more importantly, when we start to pray like that, we will start to see our prayers change, our prayer life change and the effectiveness of those prayers increase.

We learned last week that according to Jesus and what we call the Lord’s Prayer, there is a method, a manner, an order to prayer that makes our prayers most effective.  We saw last week that while any prayer is good and God hears every prayer, a prayer that begins with honest and heart-felt praise is recommended by Jesus.  Start your prayer by praising God just for Who He is and what He has done.  We then saw in Psalm 100 an example of what that looks like to shout for joy to the Lord and give Him praise no matter what kind of kind of circumstance we find ourselves in.

Today we see that Jesus says the next part of our prayer should be asking for God’s provision in our lives and where it says, “Give us our daily bread” is way, way more than just asking for food.  I’m sure that when Jesus was instructing His disciples on how to pray and He got to this part, His mind would have gone back to the story of the manna in the wilderness in Exodus 16.

The children of Israel were starving and God sent them manna from Heaven and without it, they would have died.  God provided water when they needed it.  He provided shelter, clothes, protection, guidance and strength to endure.  He provided everything they needed to survive and even thrive and we need to realize that…nothing…has…changed.  He still provides everything we need and this prayer is not so much an asking for Him to do it but more of an acknowledgement that He is the Provider.

It is vital to the health and effectiveness of our prayer lives that we really understand this so turn to the 86^th Psalm and let’s get an illustration or two (or four) of what it really looks like to acknowledge God as the great Provider.  I don’t know about you but I need illustrations.  I’m not smart enough to just retain most things I am told without illustrations so we go to the book of Psalms for the illustration of this verse in the Lord’s Prayer that says, “Give us our daily bread” and then we will look at the first four verses of Psalm 86 and we will get four illustrations of it.

In Psalm 86:1-4, David says, “Hear me, LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. ²Guard my life, for I am faithful to you; save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God; ³have mercy on me, LORD, for I call to you all day long. ⁴Bring joy to your servant, LORD, for I put my trust in you.”

So, here you are, a member or maybe a regular attender of Christ Fellowship.  Maybe you have been a Christian for fifty years, you study the Bible, you have heard a million sermons on prayer and yet you find yourself unsure about how prayer works.  Well, don’t feel bad.  I don’t think anybody really knows exactly how prayer works and the good news is that we don’t have to.

Because, while I don’t know how it works, I do know that part of the secret to powerful and effective prayer is to start with praise and part of the secret is to humbly pray for God’s provision just like David does here.  When we pray, are we giving God new information about us?  No, of course not.  He already knows it.  When we pray, are we giving God orders about what we want, like at a drive-through window?

Is that what David was doing in this first verse, giving God an order?  “Hey, you listen to me and you answer me, Mister!”  No.  I may not understand prayer but I do know that method doesn’t work and it is not what David was doing.  We can tell by how he follows it up. “Lord, I am poor and needy.”

In our prayers, we should first come to God with praise and then asking for His provision because we all, like David, are poor and needy.  All of us, no matter our bank accounts or our wallets.  No matter how big of a house we live in, God is the Provider of all things and we need to come to Him with that mindset.  We should come like King David who was not informing God but admitting to God his helplessness and hopelessness without Him.

It was something David truly knew and understood and I say that because we see in 2 Samuel chapter 9 that David provided for somebody else who was helpless and hopeless.  You’re going to need to keep your Bibles open and ready because we are going all over the place for more illustrations of what asking God for provision looks like.

In asking for His provision, we should go to God in four ways; ways that we see in the first four verses of Psalm 86 and illustrated in different parts of the Bible.  In verse one, we see we should go to God humbly.  That’s the first way.  David said he was poor and needy and He knew what it was to be poor and needy from being a shepherd to running from Saul in the mountains to being chastised by God and he proved he knew what it was to be poor and needy by the way he treated Mephibosheth.

Do you remember the story of Mephibosheth?  Do you remember all the miracles he did and all the sermons he preached and all the wonderful ways he helped people?  No, you don’t because Mephibosheth never did any of that.  He never did anything.  Mephibosheth was lame.  He was crippled and helpless and in that society, he was useless and if somebody didn’t have mercy on him, he would die from hunger, thirst or exposure.  He couldn’t do anything for himself.

But look at 2 Samuel 9:6-8.  David asks around for any descendant of Saul’s and Mephibosheth is brought to him.  It says, “⁶When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor. David said, "Mephibosheth!" "At your service," he replied. ⁷"Don't be afraid," David said to him, "for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table." ⁸Mephibosheth bowed down and said, "What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?"

Oh, that ought to be our feeling when we go to God in prayer!  “Oh Lord, what is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?"  When we truly understand Who God is and who we are, we should be amazed that the Creator, the Redeemer, the Deliverer and Sustainer, the Great I Am would even consider us.  If you want your prayers to be effective, realize Who you are praying to and then come to Him humbly!

Now, go back to Psalm 86 and look at the second verse.  In verse one, we see we should come humbly before God.  In verse 2, we see we should come completely.  Verse 2 says, “²Guard my life, for I am faithful to you; save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God.”  He asks God to guard his life, his breath, his being, who he is and what he has and he trusts God with everything completely.  If God so chooses, God can take David’s life or bless it or curse it or forget about it but David trusts God completely for everything.

Now, turn to Daniel chapter 3.  I know I’m not giving you a lot of time to look these up.  Maybe you just want to write them down and look at them later if you can’t find them as we read them and that’s okay.  But in Daniel chapter 3, we see one of Christ Fellowship’s favorite verses, I would have to say.  We quote it often around here.  In Daniel 3 we see the story of the three Hebrew boys who wouldn’t worship any other god besides Jehovah God and so they are threatened with the fiery furnace by old King Nebuchadnezzar and do you remember what they said?  

Daniel 3:13-18 says, “Furious with rage, Nebuchadnezzar summoned Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king, ¹⁴and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, "Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? ¹⁵Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?" ¹⁶Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, "King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. ¹⁷If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty's hand. ¹⁸But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."

Woo!  How ‘bout THEM boys?  Huh?  That is what I mean by trusting in God to provide for your life, your breath, your being and who you are and all you have.  That is trusting God completely and that is what it looks like to ask God for your daily bread.  Come to Him humbly and come to Him completely.

Going back again to Psalm 86, David next asks God for mercy.  Look at verse 3. “Have mercy on me, LORD, for I call to you all day long.  David is not saying he deserves help because of the length of his prayers.  He is asking for mercy as he makes it a daily habit, an hourly habit, even a minute-by-minute habit of asking for mercy, not because he deserves it but because God is merciful.

His prayer life is such a part of who David is that he basically does it all day long.  He has a running conversation with God as he goes about his day.  We are told several times in the Bible to pray without ceasing or pray at all times and in all circumstances.  If you want a powerful and effective prayer life, you have to go to God humbly, completely and here we see we need to come daily.

In Luke chapter 2, Jesus is just a baby and His parents take Him to the temple where they meet Simeon, who prophesied about Jesus there and then they meet an older woman named Anna.  In Luke 2:36-38, it says, “³⁶There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, ³⁷and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. ³⁸Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.”

What a blessing for Anna to be able to see baby Jesus and what a blessing for his parents to hear what she said about Him.  But it says she never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.  I know, some of you are thinking that if you have to fast and pray and stay at church 24/7 then you’re out.  You can’t do that, can you?  Well, nobody can do it 24/7, even Anna, but we can all be known for our daily praying.

For Anna, praying wasn’t just something she did.  It’s who she was.  It was what she was known for.  Her worship defined her and it ought to define us.  When people talk about us, they can say we are weird or ugly and that’s their opinion but if our prayer lives are powerful and effective then they will have to recognize us as people of prayer and that is a fact because we go to God humbly, completely and daily.

Lastly, I want you to see that we should go to God in prayer expectantly.  As we ask for His provision for everything we need to live and thrive in this world and the next, we should ask for provision humbly, completely, daily and expectantly.  Look back at Psalm 86 one last time.  Verse 4 says, “⁴Bring joy to your servant, LORD, for I put my trust in you.”

When you approach the throne of grace humbly like Mephibosheth, completely, like the Hebrew boys and daily like Anna, do you think that is a prayer God hears?  Do you think God wants to answer a prayer that starts with praise and then asks - like that - for provision?  Again, I don’t know everything about how prayer works but I think it’s safe to say you have God’s ear at this point and the better you know Who He is the more you will begin to pray more along the lines of His will and that will bring joy as you pray expectantly.

Hebrews 12:2 says, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Who, for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  Jesus, of all people, was a man of prayer and it was because He was a man of prayer that He prayed so expectantly that He knew that God the Father would provide everything He needed and He could have joy even knowing that the cross was before Him.

Jesus prayed, “Not my will but yours” (Luke 22:42) and expected God to provide everything Jesus needed to survive and thrive in this world and the next and so can we.  Go to the throne of grace humbly, completely, daily and expectantly and see your prayer life become powerful and effective.  Let’s do that right now as the music plays.

If you don’t have a personal relationship with God through His Son Jesus then that is where you need to start.  You can’t expect a powerful prayer life with somebody you don’t know.  Ask Him to be Lord of your life today.  Repent of your sin and ask Him for forgiveness.  Then start in a life-changing relationship today.  Why wait?