Calvary Road Baptist Church
“MORNING DEVOTIONS: What It Is To Pray”
Psalm 25.1-2
Though I am persuaded that the Christian life ought to be the most straightforward way to live, sometimes a Christian can make things more complicated than necessary. And this is as true when it comes to morning devotions as it is with anything else. John R. Rice, in his widely read book on prayer, pretty well sums it up in the title, “Prayer: Asking And Receiving.”[1] Prayer to God is quite simply asking for things from God and receiving answers from God.
Psalm 63.1-2 wonderfully describes the child of God’s morning devotions and heart’s desire:
1 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
2 To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.
That being the case, my text for this evening describes that portion of your morning devotions: prayer. Psalm 25.1-2:
1 Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul.
2 O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.
These two verses of the 25th Psalm are oftentimes sung as a chorus. How many of you have ever sung these two verses as a chorus? Those of you who have can join Brother Rodriguez and me in singing these two verses for everyone, and then brother Cyril will lead us through the chorus several times.
(Sing)
That’s a chorus learned in a few minutes that you can take the rest of your life with you. And whenever you sing that chorus, be reminded by the text what it means to pray.
Two parts that can be used to comprise your morning devotional prayers:
First, WE HAVE IN VERSE 1 A PICTURE OF PRAYER
Please take note of the three characteristics of this picture of prayer, which so perfectly sums up praying:
First, prayer is personal. By personal, I mean that when someone prays, when they are praying, they must pray to someone. You don’t just indiscriminately throw out a prayer into the darkness of the night sky or into the first rays of the morning’s sun. Does anyone do that? Yes. Does such practice make sense? No. You pray to someone. And to whom was David’s prayer directed? “Unto thee, O LORD.” David intensely personalized his prayer by speaking with words to the LORD, the covenant-making and covenant-keeping God of Israel. He called out the name of his God in his prayer. But since the relationship of the Christian in this dispensation is somewhat different than the relationship David had with God, I would encourage you to pray after the manner of the Lord Jesus Christ’s instruction, which is to pray to the Father:
“Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name ....”[2]
So, prayer is personal, from you to God, to the Father.
Next, prayer is purposeful. By purposeful, I am referring to the fact that prayer is the result of your intention, the impact of your conscious choice to engage God verbally. Prayer is words directed to God and is rightly the result of an intelligent selection that has been made, a decision that has been made to communicate to your heavenly Father. Prayer is an act of will by the person who prays. “Unto thee, O LORD, do I ....” Thus, prayer is something I do. Prayer is something you do. For it to be a real prayer to the real God, your prayer must necessarily be originated in your bosom by the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, Who is the Author of all real prayer to the Father. This is the proper implication of Romans 8.26, where the Apostle Paul wrote,
“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
The grace of God aside, and the unseen and unfelt working of the Holy Spirit in you not presently considered, prayer is something you decide to do. “Unto thee, O LORD, do I ....” This is what I mean by purposeful. How is this possible, you might wonder? Philippians 2.13, I would answer:
“For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
Third, prayer is a presentation.
“... do I lift up my soul.”
Imagine a subject in the olden days approaching his king with his most valuable treasure to offer as a gift, as a token of his love, as a demonstration of his loyalty, as an attempt to show the king’s exalted position and his own humble devotion. That is the picture of prayer poetically sketched here. What are you offering up to God when you approach the throne of grace when you come before Him in Jesus’ precious name? You are offering up to your God, afresh and anew, that which is most valuable to you, that which is the essence of “I,” your soul. Imagine taking on the day after you have personally, purposefully presented your soul to the One Who is high and lifted up.
Imagine how much more difficult you have now made it to stoop low in sin after climbing so high in prayer. And consider how difficult you have made it to give your soul to sinning after you have consciously given your soul for that day to God. Wake up tomorrow morning and lift up to God in prayer your eternal and undying soul. After doing that, can you comfortably perform every kind of job? Can you sell liquor? Can you gamble? Can you watch nasty videos? Can you look at dirty pictures? Can you swear? Can you scheme on someone of the opposite sex? I suppose you could, but it would be so much more difficult.
Wake up each morning of the week and lift up your soul to God. Then, when Sunday comes around after you have lifted up your soul to God, can you go to work instead of Church? Can you then serve yourself instead of serve the God you have prayed to? Do you want to know why Gary Isenberger’s dad would not work Sundays, could not work Sundays? Same reason why my pastor, Dr. Eli Harju, once told me that those Finlander Lutheran farmers in that upper peninsula of Michigan community he grew up in simply would not bring in their crops on Sunday, no matter what weather threatened. Why not? They had lifted their souls to God that morning in their private devotional time. And, like Abram said after communing with Melchizedek, when the king of Sodom offered him goods,
“I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich,”
Genesis 14.22-23. Oh, so many things fall nicely into place in a person’s life once they lift up their soul to God in morning devotional prayer. Not perfectly, mind you. Neither sinlesslessly. But so much more frequently. I think the person who profanes the Christian concept of the Sabbath is an individual who has no right understanding of morning devotions.
Next, WE HAVE IN VERSE 2 THE PLEADINGS OF PRAYER
“O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.”
Again, three brief observations:
First, observe Who you pray to:
“O my God”
There is something good and wholesome and proper about an individual’s possession of their God. Recognize that God wants to be possessed in this fashion, since possession does not mean you circumscribe God, since possession does not here mean that you own God, really, but that God owns you. And does this not fit perfectly the picture we are given in verse 1?
Prayers are to be personal. They are to be directed and not scattered, to God and not to the sky in shotgun fashion. This pleading of prayer is directed, pointedly, to David’s God, who he designates “my God.” And so, too, are your prayers to be directed to your God. Not to the Holy Spirit, Who I am not aware is ever prayed to even one time in the Word of God. Not even usually or typically to the Lord Jesus Christ, Who along with the precious Holy Spirit works to intercede in a Christian’s praying, and I would suggest is rightly pleaded with as your Intercessor.
A Christian’s praying is mostly directed to our Father in heaven, understanding that the Holy Spirit will intercede from His place in the Christian’s heart, and the Lord Jesus Christ will intercede from His place at His place at the Father’s right hand. I do not think it is often found otherwise in the New Testament.
Second, why you pray:
“O my God, I trust in thee.”
This word “trust” has a bit of the flavor of hiding in a place of refuge. But it also refers to having confidence in someone, relying upon someone. It speaks of faith. And so it is here.[3] The reason why you pray to God is that you rely on Him. You have confidence in Him. And you do not pray to God because you do not rely on Him. Excuse me, but where you flee for safety and refuge and security, Who you cry out to for help and deliverance, shows where your trust is. If prayer to God is not your first resort in trouble, then God is not the One you trust.
David did not turn to God after all other avenues of escape or help were exhausted. He turned to God first! And so should you and I turn to God first. Not only in emergencies but also first thing, at the beginning of each and every day. So, why you pray, you who pray, is because you trust God.
Finally, what you pray for:
“let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.”
We see two types of pleadings in these two phrases:
First, there is a pleading that deals with David’s relationship with God:
“Let me not be ashamed.”
Your pleadings with God should always have first to do with your own relationship with God. And do not think that is selfish. Notice the sequence in Paul’s directive to the elders from Ephesus in Acts 20.28, where he is reported to have urged them,
“Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers.”
Rightly understood, you must tend to your relationship with God first before you can be of any use to anyone else. His words were, “Let me not be ashamed.”
Then, pleading deals with David’s relationship with others. At this time in his life, enemies were pursuing him, so he asked God for victory over those enemies. In my judgment, this is not comparable to asking God to give your sports team a victory, which trivializes prayer. No. This is an issue of right versus wrong, good versus evil, with David being on God’s side and his enemies being God’s enemies, openly opposed to Him as idolaters and blasphemers, in such a circumstance as that it is right and proper and good to pray for victory over your enemies.
A brief message on the kind of praying you should offer to God in your morning devotions. Personal. Purposeful. And in a fashion presenting your soul to God afresh and anew.
There should be some pleadings in your praying since praying is asking and receiving. Pray to God. Pray because you trust God. And pray for your relationship with God and others, whatever your needs may happen to be.
Let’s stand again and sing that delightful chorus that forms this evening’s text.
(Sing)
__________
[1] John R. Rice, Prayer: Asking And Receiving, (Sword of the Lord Press)
[2] Matthew 6.9; Luke 11.2
[3] Francis Brown, S. R. Driver & Charles A. Briggs, The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew And English Lexicon, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1979), page 105.
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