Psalm 86, now this psalm is,
I've got all kinds of notes in my Bible around this psalm and
I tend to do that as I read through a text of scripture. I know some
people don't like to write in their Bible but it's just a book
I can get another one if I need to without writing and over time
I end up filling the pages with thoughts as you read through
it and this one just happens to have a lot of writing beside
it and as the Lord blesses us when we read his word and we're
enabled to dwell on a particular scripture with delight. That's
a great blessing. And so this is one of those psalms. I really like this psalm and
I'm looking forward to getting into this. Now in this psalm,
There's really two big divisions, and I want to cover, or try to
cover, at least the first part of those, the first one of those
divisions tonight, and that will be the first seven verses. We'll read through the entire
psalm so you get the sense of it, and then I'll try to give
you an overview, and we'll go from there, okay? Psalm 86, verse
one. Bow down thine ear, O Lord, Hear
me, for I am poor and needy. Preserve my soul, for I am holy. O Thou my God, save Thy servant
that trusteth in Thee. Be merciful unto me, O Lord,
for I cry unto Thee daily. Rejoice, the soul of Thy servant,
for unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For Thou, Lord, art
good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy unto all them
that call upon Thee. Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer
and attend to the voice of my supplications. In the day of
my trouble I will call upon Thee, for Thou wilt answer me. Among
the gods there is none like unto Thee, O Lord, neither are there
any works like unto Thy works. All nations whom Thou hast made
shall come and worship before Thee, O Lord, and shall glorify
Thy name, for Thou art great and doest wondrous things. Thou
art God alone. Teach me Thy way, O Lord, I will
walk in Thy truth. Unite my heart to fear Thy name. I will praise Thee, O Lord my
God, with all my heart, and I will glorify Thy name for evermore.
For great is Thy mercy toward me, and Thou hast delivered my
soul from the lowest hell. O God, the proud are risen against
me, and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul,
and have not set Thee before them. But Thou, O Lord, are to
God full of compassion and gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous
in mercy and truth. O turn unto me, and have mercy
upon me. Give thy strength unto thy servant,
and save the son of thine handmaid. Show me a token for good, that
they which hate me may see it. And be ashamed, because thou,
Lord, hast hopened, or helped me, and comforted me. Okay, so
that's the 17 verses of Psalm 86. And if you look at this in the
first seven verses, what you'll see here is that there's a natural
outline. First of all, it says in the
head of verse one, at the beginning of this psalm, under the title
Psalm 86, it says, a prayer of David. Now, because it is a prayer
of David, then that does something as we read this psalm. David
was a man in 1 Samuel 13 and verse 14. God says he found a
man after his own heart. Of course, we know that God found
him to have a heart after his own heart because God gave him
that heart. And so it wasn't like God was
searching and discovered something he wasn't aware of. It means
that God created this heart in David that would be like his
heart. But because he was a man after
God's own heart, and because this is a prayer of David, the
first thing that's obvious in this psalm is that prayer to
God as is done in this psalm, is so important. A man after
God's own heart prays to God. So prayer is essential. It's
something that a man after God's own heart does, is pray, prays. And so that's the first thing
we see here, prayer, prayer to the Lord. And secondly, it says
in verse 1, "...bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me, for I am
poor and needy." Now in these first four verses, what you'll
see here is there are four requests that are made. In the first verse,
he says, bow down thine ear, and that's a request for the
Lord to hear, and not just to hear, but to act. And then in
the second verse, preserve my soul, that's the second request.
So bow down thine ear to hear, O Lord, and preserve my soul."
And then in the third verse he asks for mercy, be merciful unto
me, O Lord. The first one he says, O Lord,
that's Jehovah. The second verse it's, O thou
my God. And the third verse it's, O Lord,
which is the word for, it just means sovereign, my Adonai. And then in verse four, the fourth
request is, rejoice the soul of thy servant. So you can see
four requests made in these four verses. Bow down thine ear. And
that's, you could say it this way, hear me, but this is a much
more pictorial request made. God has to stoop to hear. And so to hear us, God has to
stoop. And so that's why I think it
says, bow down thine ear. So those four things, bow down
thine ear, preserve my soul, be merciful to me and rejoice
the soul of thy servant. You can see in all those things
that this is the way, this is the desire of God's people, isn't
it? Lord, hear me. Lord, preserve
me. Be merciful to me and give me
this joy. Rejoice my soul. It shows us
how dependent we are on God, doesn't it? We're dependent upon
Him to hear us, to preserve us, to be merciful to us, to rejoice,
to cause us this joy. And then, in these four verses
also, Actually, he gives, if I include the fifth verse, he
gives five reasons for his requests. So, the first reason, he says
in the first verse, bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me. The reason is, for I am poor
and needy. And then in the second verse,
he has another reason, to preserve my soul. Preserve my soul, for
I am holy, O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in
thee. So the second reason is I'm holy, you are my God, save
thy servant that trusts in thee, because he trusts in him. And
then the third verse, The reason for him asking, be merciful unto
me, O Lord, is for I cry unto thee daily. So that's the third
reason. And then verse four, the fourth
reason for his fourth request, rejoice the soul of thy servant,
for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. He lifts up his soul,
which is another way of expressing this, again, pictorially, that
he's pouring out his soul in prayer to God. Okay, and then
in verse five, a fifth reason is given. He says, for thou,
Lord, art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy unto all
them that call upon thee. So if you look at these verses
here, the request is being made to God, who is Jehovah, who is
his God, who is his sovereign, his Lord, and he speaks to him
as Lord, and he says he asks for these reasons because he's
poor and needy, because he is holy and God is his God, and
God can save, and he asks him to save him, he is his servant,
and he trusts in him. And then in verse three, because
he cries to the Lord daily. And verse four, because he lifts
his soul up to the Lord so that he would give him this joy. And
then in verse five, because the Lord is good, ready to forgive,
plenteous in mercy to all that call upon him. All right, so
you can see that the organization here, and it's beautiful, isn't
it? It's very, very beautiful and endearing too. And in this
psalm, what you see is that David is praying With in view and this
is the basis really of his expectation to be heard he's praying on the
basis of God's own name his character who God is and Then on the basis
of his word his promises and on his work if you look in In
verse Verse 8, he says, among the gods there's none like to
thee, O Lord, neither are there any works like unto thy works.
And in verse 10, for thou art great, and doest wondrous things,
thou art God alone. So this is, all of these words
in here are describing the greatness of God, His character, His name. and also his works, his wondrous
things that he's done. And so he just goes on and on. He's pouring out his heart to
God, and in doing this, in his prayer, he is holding in view,
in his prayer, God's own character, his goodness, his greatness.
For example, his goodness in verse five is precisely what
he needs. He says, for thou art good, ready
to forgive, plenteous in mercy to all that call upon Thee. And then if you look on down
in verse 15, he says, Thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion
and gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth. It's like he's going to a fountain.
Have you ever been to one of those mountain streams that flows
out of the side of the mountain or a waterfall perhaps? I know when I was a kid, we went
to this place near our house in the summertime because it
was always cool there. It was called Bernie Falls. I
don't know if any of you have ever been there. But it's a natural
spring and there's something like a million gallons of water
that flow over the falls out of this natural spring every
day, I think. I can't remember. An enormous
amount of beautiful cool, fresh, clear water that just comes out
of the stream. And it's been going on since
I was a kid and before I was born, I'm sure. And it'll probably
go on after I'm gone. So that's the way God, the description
here given of God is just an abundance of goodness. And so
it's no wonder that when he comes to the Lord in prayer, it's like
he's dipping that cup. And I remember this experience
too. We would sometimes pull over, and my dad was driving,
we'd see a stream coming out of the side of the hill, and
we'd pull over and he would put a cup under that stream. And
you know, the water would come down so fast, he couldn't get
it in the cup. It'd come in and go out just
as fast as it came in. So it's like you had to just
sort of step aside and just get the very edge of that stream
in order to get your cup full. And that's the way it seems to
me here, is that God's goodness is being expounded in such a
way that it's so bountiful and so much what this man needs that
he's coming here because this is where it is. And so this is
a wonderful thing, isn't it, to see this in this psalm. So
what a prayer here. It's a prayer of the man after
God's own heart. And because it is a prayer to
the man after God's own heart, we know these are God's words.
These are God's words, and they were inspired by the Holy Spirit
of God. And they were given here to this man in the character
of one who is poor and needy. So, the other thing you see here
in verse 7, at the end of this section that I'm going to look
at tonight is, in that day, in the day of my trouble, I will
call upon thee for thou wilt answer me. Notice the confidence
he has in the Lord. Thou wilt answer me. There's no uncertainty in his
expectation there, is there? And how can he be so confident?
Because when I read these words, I can't help but feel a measure
of doubt, and perhaps a big measure of doubt. Because as I read them,
in some ways I can say, yes, I sense a little bit of that,
but nothing as it should be. For example, I am poor and needy. And Jesus said, blessed are the
poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. To be
poor in spirit is a blessing, God-given blessing. We can't
make ourselves poor in spirit. have that attitude, it has to
be given to us. But it is a blessed attitude,
isn't it? To be poor in spirit. But yet, even though that's a
blessing, when you think about it, in my own experience, I'm
talking about my own experience, yours may be similar, I expect
that it is. But I can't, in confidence, claim
enough poverty of spirit and enough need to be able to have
any confidence that God will hear me because of my sense of
my poverty and my need. You see, each one of us has an
objective poverty and an objective need before God. But we also
have a subjective, we have this sense of our objective need.
The objective need is real, God has described it. And we're not
aware of it, naturally. He has to reveal it to us. And so we gain some subjective
sense of our objective need. But our subjective sense of our
need is never up to the measure of our true need, is it? And
that's what I'm talking about here. I want the Lord to hear
me, but when I ask Him to hear me, I often ask Him to hear the
need of my own case, because He knows my need. I know it,
but very little compared to the actual need. I know something
about my poverty of spirit, but very little compared to the poverty,
the true poverty of my spirit. So that's something that I think
about here. So it's a prayer of faith, though.
It's a prayer of faith. This man is praying in faith.
He's praying with the confidence that God will hear him because
God has said he hears, the poor and the needy. See, he's basing
it on God's character and on God's word. And so that's why
I say his confidence is there. Not because he has confidence
in his own character, but confidence in God's character. Okay, so
that's the first thing. And then, as I said before, he
prays for these things. He needs God to preserve him,
in verse two. To be preserved by God is necessary. If the Lord doesn't hold us up,
we will fall. And so we need him. We won't
be saved unless he holds us up. Isn't that true? Unless he lifts
us up and holds us up and brings us to himself, we cannot be saved. He has to do everything in order
to save us. And so that's something that
we look for him to do. We ask him to do it. And isn't
it wonderful that we ask the Lord to do what he has told us
he does for his people and has promised to do for them. And
so we ask, Lord, do that. Do that for me. And we shouldn't
be ashamed, should we? And so that's something here.
And then I want to say here at the outset, as we're looking
at this, before we get into some of the details here, is that
there's something unusual about this first verse especially,
the condition that he describes about himself. If you were going
to a king, let's say, and asking him for something, you would
probably try to present yourself with a resume. Here's where I
come from. My father, he was a good man.
My mother, she's an honorable woman. My grandfather, he was
a good fellow too, and so on. You start maybe with your heritage,
and then you talk about their profession. Yeah, he's a watchmaker,
or he's a clockmaker. I mean, he's a farmer. He's a
good, hardworking man. He's honest, has a lot of integrity.
And we're good servants to the king, and so on. So you start
pulling out all these things. But it's interesting here that
the psalmist begins with his poverty and his need. He comes like a beggar. to the
Lord. And that seems strange to us.
If you don't recognize that, maybe as I speak about this a
little bit, you'll begin to resonate with it. It's natural for us,
in our sinful condition, to not like to be found naked before
God. Don't you find that? You don't
want to be found guilty. You don't want to be found naked
without a covering for your sin. You don't want to be found in
your need, do you? The fact of the matter is, even
without our sin, we would be in need of God, right? He made
everything. We didn't make ourselves. And
so we start out with a zero balance, and it only goes down from there.
But I wanted to consider this with you for just a minute here
as we're getting into this, is our need is not something we
naturally want to come with, but when we learn the gospel,
we actually do, we do wanna come this way. Look at Revelation.
For example, Revelation chapter 3. A lack of sense of our need
and our poverty before God is a very bad thing. It's a very
bad thing. And it shows a greater need than
we realize, doesn't it? In Revelation chapter 3 and verse
17, the Lord says, because you say, I am rich and increased
with goods and have need of nothing. and you know not that you are
wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel thee to
buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich, and
white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame
of thy nakedness do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with ice
have, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke,
and chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent."
You see how the Lord instructs these people who were found lukewarm? He says, you need to realize
your poverty. You think you're rich, you're
poor. You think you have nice clothes, you're actually naked
before me. You think you're great, you're
wretched. You're blind, you're naked. And it reminds us of what
Jesus said in John chapter nine. Let me read that to you. See,
this sense of a lack of our sense of need is a very big, big problem. It's a problem we need to fall
on our face before God. He says in John chapter nine,
After he healed the blind man, he said to the blind man, he
found him, in verse 35 of John 9, he said, do you believe on
the Son of God? He answered and said, who is he, Lord? I like
his honesty. Who is he, Lord, that I might
believe on him? What a simple man. And Jesus
said to him, thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh
with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe.
And he worshipped him. And Jesus said, for judgment
I am coming to this world that they which see not. might see,
and that they which see might be made blind. Some of the Pharisees
which were with him heard these words and said to him, Are we
blind also? Jesus said to them, if you were
blind, you should have no sin. But now you say, we see, therefore
your sin remains. You see, it's necessary for us
to see our great poverty and our need. Look at Isaiah chapter
55, along the same lines. In Isaiah 55, the Lord says this. Ho, everyone that thirsteth,
Come ye to the waters, you thirsty ones, and he that has no money
Come ye buy and eat, yea, come buy wine and milk without money
and without price. Wherefore do you spend your money
for that which is not bread and your labor for that which satisfies
not? Hearken, notice how you buy,
hearken diligently unto me and eat that which is good and let
your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear and come unto
me here and your soul shall live. I will make an everlasting covenant
with you, even the sure mercies of David." And he goes on to
describe Christ. So here what we see is that the
Lord has to give this to us. It's essential. We can't produce
it. And to have a poverty of spirit
and a brokenness, a recognition of our need, is actually a great
blessing, even though it doesn't feel good, does it? It doesn't
feel good. And yet, that's exactly what
the psalmist is saying here. Now, that's one thing. I want
to say that this is a principle. The Lord said, whoever exalts
himself shall be abased, but whoever humbles himself shall
be exalted. So being brought low by the Lord
in his grace is essential so that we see our need. And what
is the result of that, seeing our need then? Well, the first
thing we're gonna see is that it's not our sense of our poverty
and it is not the sense of our need that gives us any standing
before God. That's our natural inclination.
I remember when I was younger, even not so long ago, and even
I'm tempted to do this, when I read something in scripture
like the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, blessed are the poor in spirit,
I want to make myself poor, because I want to be blessed, or blessed
are they that mourn, and so on. The meek. You try to acquire
that attitude, but you can't produce it. And an attempt to
produce it actually puts you in reverse. It seems like you
dig your hole deeper. Because the first step in seeing
our poverty is to realize that seeing our poverty is not a merit. It doesn't make us more favorable
to God. And so what we see is that true
poverty of spirit is actually seeing that only if God looks
upon Christ for us do we have anything. In other words, we
have nothing except what we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. If
we claim something for ourself, then we have nothing. Paul said
in 1 Corinthians 9, he says, I am what I am by the grace of
God. So whatever I am is by His grace. He's given it to me. I
can't claim anything. I can't depend on that. I don't
look to myself. I look to the Lord to do for
me and to do in me what only He can do and I can't produce.
And so that's the first thing to recognize here is that the
poverty and the need that we need and must have is this recognition
that God only recognizes Christ. And my entire need is met in
Him. And unless He is my only need
and supply, then I have nothing. If I bring something, like in
Isaiah 55, you who have no money, come ye buy and eat. That's the
only way God will accept us, is if we have nothing but what
we have in Christ. And so the other thing I wanted
to point out here in this psalm, when we look at especially verse
one and what follows, is that this is a prayer of a poor and
needy man. In verse two he says, preserve
my soul for I am holy. Now I might be able to get some
comfort in being poor and needy, but then I find that it's a misplaced
comfort. because God must receive me for
Christ's sake alone. But when I get to verse two,
preserve me for I am holy, I cannot honestly find any comfort in
that when I think of it as something that I perform. If holiness is
something that I make happen, then I find no comfort in it.
First of all, because in myself, I am not holy. Secondly, I can't
produce holiness. And third, because the scripture
reveals that God himself makes us holy. He sets aside vessels
to his honor. And he does that in the Lord
Jesus Christ by electing grace. He does that by the Lord Jesus
Christ, by his sanctifying blood. His blood makes us holy. And
then his spirit who gives us this life in our souls. which
is the life of God in us, which is therefore holy. And that holy
life in our souls causes us to look to Christ, who is our holiness,
our sanctification. So I can't take any comfort in
some character trait or moral behavior on my part. I can only
find comfort in the Lord's work. And so I say that in order to
build up to this conclusion here is that when we read this psalm
about the poor and the needy man and the holy man, the one
who is after God's own heart, what we're going to have to draw,
the conclusion we have to draw here is preeminently this psalm
speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because when we read, for example,
in Matthew 5, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven, you see that this was ultimately
fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. How could we be made rich? How
could we be given the kingdom of heaven? The answer is not
that we became poor, we were already impoverished by our sin.
We were debtors to God and had a debt we couldn't pay, not even
the least part of it. And we owed God a debt that required
us to be imprisoned, and we couldn't pay in prison. Couldn't earn. Because we're prisoners to our
sin and to the justice of God. So someone else had to pay. And
that someone is the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at 2 Corinthians,
and this I think is the the helpful scripture to explain the heart
of this psalm to us, in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, a well-known verse. He says in verse 9, this is a
principle, it's in the context of something else, but it applies
very broadly. He says, for you know the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your
sakes he became poor. that you, through his poverty,
might be rich. You see, this is the gospel. We were poor, so poor, ruined,
and helpless in our poverty. But there was no merit in that.
But the Lord Jesus Christ was rich. He is equal with God. And yet he made himself poor.
He became a man. He became a servant as a man. As a man, he had to depend upon
his God and Father as a man who was utterly dependent, who was
poor. Pour in spirit. He said in Matthew
11, he says, take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am
meek and lowly of heart. And you shall find rest for your
souls. So we learn that preeminently the Lord Jesus Christ was humble. And I mean that in the highest
possible sense. In fact, I mean it so much so
that there was no one on earth humble as he was humble. He's
the only one who stooped from high to low. We were already
below the bar. All we could do is admit, at
the best, admit what we are. And that's, there's no merit
in that. It's like a murderer admitting he's a murderer. He
doesn't get himself, he doesn't deliver himself from the justice
by doing so. He just agrees with justice.
But the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God, who is equal with God,
made himself of no reputation. And he says throughout the gospels,
he says, the foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests,
but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. He made himself
absolutely poor. He didn't have a house. He stayed
in other people's homes when he was on the earth. He, you
know, you could go down the list. He just didn't have things. People
provided for his living out of their living. and they followed
him around to supply his needs, his physical needs. He depended
upon God as a man, as a perfect man, in perfect dependence, in
perfect confidence, but never with an arrogant attitude. as
if he deserved it. He prayed as a man who was poor
and needy, made poor and needy by his own self-abasement. He stepped, he made himself of
no reputation in order that he might make us rich, who were
nothing, us who were nothing. We deserved every payment of
God's justice and he came and scooped us out by taking our
debt and paying it all when we had nothing to pay. Amazing grace. And so you can see that this
psalm is speaking about that in many ways. When he says, I'm
holy, it makes sense then, doesn't it? Preserve my soul for I'm
holy. Absolutely holy. And yet, he depended upon God
to preserve him, preserve him throughout his life. Remember
when King Herod, when he was an infant, tried to destroy him? So many times the Pharisees wanted
to destroy him, and he slipped through the crowd, or he walked
away, or whatever it was. Remember all the times he was
in control. He laid his life down. They didn't
take it from him But they would have if the Lord hadn't preserved
him as a man He had he he was utterly dependent upon God when
he was in the wilderness and without food For 40 days and
40 nights and he was tempted by the devil Angels came and
ministered to him He was a man, a real man. And in his soul,
he was poor and needy. What a humble man. What a humble
man. There's no humility like his. The only one who ever stooped
from a high place to a low place like him, absolutely to save
a people who were so unworthy. That's poor. That is a needy
man. He made himself poor and needy
in order to give us all things. The kingdom of heaven is his
to give because he was poor and needy to give to his people.
And God preserved him. He kept him. He even cried on
the cross that the Lord would deliver him from his enemies.
He was poor. He had friends, but they all
forsook him and fled. One of his friends betrayed him.
His enemies constantly tried to put him to death. He was a
poor and needy man. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. When he healed people, it says
he himself took our infirmities. He took our plagues and he was
plagued with them in order to heal us. So everything he did,
he had to pay for it. He didn't just make things happen.
He paid for it. And he didn't just go into the
store and take it. He offered himself to God. And so we can
see that here. And it's wonderful to see it.
When the Lord prays like this, realize that he's praying as
our surety. the one who obligated himself
to stand in our place when God demanded from us. He would meet,
he would step in, interpose himself between us and God's demands
and answer God's demands with himself for his people. That's what a surety did. And
the Lord Jesus Christ did that. He substituted himself in our
place before God instead of us standing there before God in
our own person. That's why when he cries this
way, hear me, bow down and hear me. Talk about humility. He's
talking to the Lord, God of heaven and earth. And as a man, he says,
you have to bow down in order to hear me. We might think that
God has to bow down to hear us, but we don't know anything about
God's height until we see that He had to bow down to hear a
man, the Lord Jesus Christ. What is man? Psalm 8, remember
that psalm? It's quoted in Hebrews chapter
2. Let me read it to you in Psalm chapter 8. It's quoted in Hebrews
2 regarding the Lord Jesus Christ. He says in Psalm chapter 8, He
says, O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Thy name in all the earth,
who has set Thy glory above the heavens! Out of the mouth of
babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength, because of
Thine enemies, that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider Thy heavens,
the work of Thy fingers, the moon, and the stars which Thou
hast ordained, what is man that Thou art mindful of him? and
the son of man that thou visitest him. This is talking about Christ.
Read Hebrews 2. Thou madest him a little lower
than the angels. Remember Hebrews 2.9 for the
suffering of death. A little lower than the angels
and has crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to
have dominion over the works of thy hands that has put all
things under his feet. That's Christ. All sheep and
oxen, yea, the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air,
the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the
sea, O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth.
God has exalted his son as the man And He made Him lower than
the angels for a time in order that He might save us and exalt
His Son higher than the heavens and bring His people who were
lower, they were in the dung of their sin, out of the dunghill
He lifted them up to make them princes. with the Lord Jesus
Christ. Amazing, isn't it? And so we
see that here in this psalm. So again, not our subjective
sense of poverty and need is of any merit, but Christ stooped
to make himself of no reputation to enrich us with the eternal
salvation that he earned by his own redemptive blood. And that's
what we see in this psalm. He lived the full life of a man
in perfect dependence upon God, and it is that faith of Christ
in depending on God, on his word, doing his will from his heart,
and giving Himself and laying Himself into the hands of His
Father, it says in Psalm 22, verse 8, He rolled Himself upon
Jehovah. Putting Himself into His Father's
hands in order that, according to God's Word, he would reward
the payment of the offering of himself in blood with the eternal
salvation of all his people for whom he died." That is a humble
man, isn't it? He said, I did not come to serve.
I didn't come to be served, but I came to serve and to give my
life a ransom for many. That's Matthew 20, verse 28.
So that's what this psalm is talking about here. And yet it
is also talking about our own subjective sense of the need
that we have for God to hear us bowing down and for Christ's
sake to hear us Preserve us, be merciful to us, and give us
this joy that comes from knowing He is our God, we are His by
His work, and He will preserve us, He will keep us to the end.
He'll bring us to Himself according to His will, His word, and His
work. And that's why this psalm emphasizes
God's character. It emphasizes His character,
His name, His promises, His work, His covenant. We see that even
in verse, look at verse, just for example, verse three. Be
merciful unto me, O Lord. Not that one, I'm sorry. Verse
two. He says, preserve my soul, for
I am holy. God set me apart. He set me apart
by His electing love, His redeeming blood, and His Holy Spirit. O thou, my God, save... My God
means my covenant God. God made Himself my God. He made
me His child. Save thy servant that trusteth
in thee. That's the one thing every believer
can say. I'm trusting the Lord to save me. Isn't that true?
If we believe in our heart, the Lord Jesus, and confess with
our mouth, God raised him from the dead. That's trusting Him.
It's trusting His finished work and His justification for our
justification. We're trusting the Lord. I'm
trusting Christ for everything. I have nothing. I have a deficit,
a payment I can't begin to pay. And the Lord is going to save
us by his mercy and his grace, according to his character, his
work and his word. Amazing, isn't it? Now, I want
to look at this psalm in a little bit more detail. It's going to
take at least one more time here. And I want to try to go through
some of these things so you can see how endearing this God-given
prayer from the soul, the heart of a man of God, preeminently
a man after God's own heart, which David was as a prophet,
but preeminently the Lord Jesus Christ obviously was. And God
always heard him. God always answered his prayer.
And this is why he prays it this way openly. I was thinking about
this as I thought about this psalm. Isn't it interesting that
if you listen, if you were to go to somebody's bedroom door
and listen to them praying, wouldn't you feel ashamed that you were
intervening into the very private conversation of a man from his
soul to God? And yet God himself, the Lord
Jesus Christ, David in the historical, and every believer, is represented
in this prayer and God is opening it up. This is his will. This
is how we are to pray as a poor and needy person in need of everything
and depending upon him for everything and trusting that God will save
us for the sake of his son. I have nothing but what I have
in Christ and then having Christ, I have everything. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that as you have
been pleased to give to your son everything, because he gave
himself for our sins, that you would consider his poverty, his
offering, his sacrifice, his obedience, and his faith, and
his prayers, and you would receive us for his sake, for your name's
sake, according to your promise, your covenant, your work, your
word. Thank you for being so faithful
and so good that you would save sinners by the greatest stoop
and pay the greatest price. and lift us to the greatest heights
when we deserved only justice at the hand of your wrath. And
we pray, Lord, that you would give us in our heart so as to
preserve in our heart this trust in Christ and this admiration
for him that we would be enabled to worship you. In Jesus' name
we pray, amen.