Sovereign Grace Church Toronto

Draw near to my soul, redeem me; ransom me because of my enemies! Psalms 69:18

O God, be not far from me; O my God, make haste to help me! Psalms 71:12

Closeness to God means everything when we are deeply aware of need and danger. If God is everywhere at all times (which he is) then this appeal is not for an absent God to come and fill the void. Instead it is an appeal for God to break into our senses and reveal his presence with us. It may even be a request for a greater “faith sense” of God’s presence, even if the senses are still left unaffected. But it is an appeal for a sense of God’s nearness—something which the Psalmist, and we too, often lack.

Note how these two prayers are framed. One appeals to God’s work to redeem and ransom. The other appeals to the fruit of that work – “be not far from me”. What wonderful truth is revealed about our relationship with God in the words “my God”?

Pastor Tim Kerr

Answer me, O LORD, for your steadfast love is good; according to your abundant mercy, turn to me. Hide not your face from your servant; for I am in distress; make haste to answer me. Psalms 69:16-17

Notice how the Psalmist appeals to God’s character, and to his desperate need, as the reason God must answer his prayer. Why do you think the Psalmist does this? Why would an appeal to God’s goodness and mercy move God to answer a desperate prayer? What does it say about God, when our “soul distress” moves him to act on our behalf? Give thought to this, for it reveals something very wonderful about our God. Then worship him for it!

Pastor Tim Kerr

Summon your power, O God, the power, O God, by which you have worked for us. Psalms 68:28

Here is a powerful one-verse prayer about power! Power is being personified and is presented as a servant of God that does his bidding. It is a prayer asking God to work, using divine power—power that we don’t have. It is asking God for something BIG. Something beyond what human power can achieve. Something that only God can do and which will glorify God if he does it, for only God can take the credit for it!

Yet it is an appeal to his love and his covenantal relationship with us. Do you see this in the last two words of this verse? He is doing something great, but it is “for us”. How does the cross help us to pray this kind of prayer with great faith? See Romans 8:32.

Pastor Tim Kerr

From the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Psalms 61:2

The word translated “faint” here is sometimes translated “overwhelmed” (NLT, NKJV). It has the sense of anguish, exhaustion, and complete lack of strength or will to go on. It is when one hits bottom, with no strength to carry on. In our lives we generally don’t hit this wall very often—but when we do, it is truly a great opportunity to grow in prayer!

There are times our prayers to God are reduced to a whisper, for we are brought so low and are humbled so deeply:

You will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak, and from the dust your speech will be bowed down; your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost, and from the dust your speech shall whisper. Isaiah 29:4

The very nature of faith is to trust “away from ourselves to another”. So faith is very powerful when the spirit is very low and without strength. Why do you think that it often requires such dramatic “strippings” before we are compelled to look for help away from ourselves?

Pastor Tim Kerr

O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you. Psalms 38:9

Two items that are hard to communicate to others are our deep longings (literally “desires”) and our deep disappointments (“sighing’). Sometimes they are hard to articulate because we barely understand them ourselves. We strongly yearn for things and we deeply feel the disappointment when what we hoped for is denied (Prov 13:12). Yes, there are some who are given the skill to extricate the deep purposes of the human heart and bring them to light (Prov 20:5). But there is only one who intimately knows every desire and every disappointment of our life. How good it is to be understood by someone! Sometimes the omniscience of God is a terrifying truth, but in this case it is profoundly comforting. We are never truly alone for He is the God who sees! (Gen 16:13)

Pastor Tim Kerr

Give us life, and we will call upon your name! Restore us, O LORD God of hosts! Let your face shine, that we may be saved! Psalms 80:18-19

God’s supplies always provide for our obedience. I call this the echo effect in prayer. In a canyon, one can hear a repeat of words shouted out coming back as an echo. The words bouncing back are none other than the words of the speaker himself.

So it is with prayer. God first breathes into us his prayer-enabling power, and then we breathe out prayers back to him. Our prayers are mere echos of his enabling grace. Note the 3 requests in this verse. How are the two results connected to the three requests?

Pastor Tim Kerr

Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved! O LORD God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers? Psalms 80:3-4

This verse presents us with an issue we might never have considered. God’s anger is sometimes directed toward seemingly good things—like prayer. A good thing becomes a bad thing when the heart remains bent on sin even while “doing the right thing”. Even prayer becomes repugnant if it covers an evil heart. Notice this in the following verses:

My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all. Hosea 11:7

If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination. Proverbs 28:9

“Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? Ezekiel 14:3

Then they will cry to the LORD, but he will not answer them; he will hide his face from them at that time, because they have made their deeds evil. Micah 3:4

Pastor Tim Kerr

In other words, our heart attitude and posture in prayer is critical. Ps 80:3-4 is a prayer offered, knowing that previous prayers have been rejected. What do we learn here about how this cycle of rejected prayers is broken?

There are many who say, “Who will show us some good? Lift up the light of your face upon us, O LORD!” Psalms 4:6

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us. Psalms 67:1

Make your face shine on your servant; save me in your stead- fast love! Psalms 31:16

In these verses we see a clear connection between God’s face and the shining of light on the one praying. It is also associated with good: a deliverance; God’s grace; His blessing. To have God’s face turned toward us is to experience his favour. It is like being in a long dark night, shivering with cold, and to suddenly feel the warm rays of sunlight on us. How good the warmth and light are!

Many times God comes to us on his own initiative. He comes to us and surprises us, as he did when he sought us before the foundation of the world; gave his Son for us; and then called us to himself through the work of the Holy Spirit in us. But there are times when God comes to us because we ask him to. Are you asking God to shine his face on you; your family; your church; and unbelieving friends, and even nations that do not know him?

Pastor Tim Kerr

Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God. Ps 31:5

A critical part of prayer is the act of self-surrender. It is something that needs to be done again and again. Note the way this is done in Jesus’ life and then in our lives in the following two verses:

When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 1 Peter 2:23

Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good. 1 Peter 4:19

How does his “paying a price for us” (redeem) actually motivate us to entrust ourselves to our Redeemer?

Pastor Tim Kerr

Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. Psalms 25:16

Sometimes it seems to us that God is not facing us. We see his back but not his face. And there is nothing lonelier than when even God seems absent. So we plead with God to turn his face toward us. This is a strong metaphor for God’s presence and favour to be experi- enced tangibly. There is always plenty of grace available when we are conscious of God’s presence. How does God’s grace fill the deep void of the lonely and afflicted soul? Why is grace from outside of ourselves the key to the problem we feel inside of ourselves?

Pastor Tim Kerr