Sermon Tone Analysis
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“Hear me, Lord…listen to my cry…hear my prayer…I call on you, my God, for you will answer me…turn your ear to me and hear my prayer...”
Have you ever prayed that prayer or a prayer like that?
I’m guessing you have.
Maybe not with these exact words, but with the same intent: asking God to hear you, to listen, to answer you, to pay attention.
If you’ve prayed like that, I suspect you’re in good company.
I know you’re at least in league with David, the king of Israel, a man after God’s own heart.
Psalm 17 is the first psalm in the Psalter that is designated as a prayer.
“Psalm 17: A prayer of David”—that’s what it is.
It’s a model prayer.
It teaches us.
It’s instructive.
We’re privileged to get a glimpse into the prayer life of God’s servant, David.
David, we read, is a man after God’s own heart, and, in large part, this is because David is a man of prayer.
The Psalm begins with David addressing the Lord.
We don’t know the situation yet, but we observe David’s stance before God:
What we see from the outset of the psalm is a man who is engaging with God, a man who knows he can turn to God and bare his soul before God.
In this way, as we approach this psalm, David teaches us a few things about prayer.
He teaches us, firstly, to:
Cry Out to God
Like a child who runs to Mom or Dad when something is wrong, tears in their eyes and choke in their throat, David runs to his Heavenly Father: “Hear me…listen to my cry…hear my prayer.”
He believes God hears him.
David gets to speak with the God who hears.
This is one of the most incredible miracles; and yet it’s often overlooked and downplayed.
We take this immense privilege and write if off as just another spiritual task, another box to check on our checklist of religious duties: “Guess I better pray today...”
I must admit, prayer is not always my first reaction; I don’t always pray first about whatever’s going on.
Just this week, I was having a hard parenting moment and what did I do?
Meghann and I talked about it a lot, we sat the kids down for a family meeting, and I called Carla and vented to her.
Do you know what I didn’t do?
I didn’t cry out to God; I didn’t think, initially, to pray about it.
I’m beyond thankful for my wife.
And I’m glad I can call Carla anytime and she’ll listen, advise, and correct.
But why wasn’t prayer my first move?
I get around to prayer eventually, but it’s not always my go-to.
By the way, Carla’s cell is 660-555-3993.
Call her any time!
If it makes you feel a little bit better about your prayerlessness, I don’t believe prayer was always David’s first move.
Instead of praying when he was tempted by the pretty lady bathing on the roof, David gave in.
And then, instead of praying and confessing after his affair with Bathsheba, he tried to cover it up, taking matters into his own hands and even had her husband killed.
Prayer at multiple points in that saga would have redirected David’s feelings and actions, I’m sure.
David’s inclination is not always to pray first.
And we know that this—prayer—is not the natural first step for God’s people at all times.
I know it’s not for me, and I’m assuming it’s not what you do first all the time, is it?
After 400-ish years in slavery God’s people finally cry out to Him for help, for relief, for redemption:
The Israelites finally come to their senses (and finally come to the end of their rope) and finally do what they should have done long before: they cry out to God and God hears.
Further on in the history of God’s people as recorded in the book of Judges (probably my favorite book I’ve preached through, by the way), there’s a consistent refrain:
In the time of the Judges, the people of God keep doing whatever they please, it routinely gets them in a jam, and eventually—e-v-e-n-t-u-a-l-l-y—they will cry out to God.
And what does God do?
He hears their cry and gives them a deliverer to deliver them—every time.
Every.
Single.
Time.
It’s mercy upon mercy, grace upon grace.
Why do we wait to cry out to Him?
Why is this a pattern among the people of God?
Why don’t we learn to make this—crying out to God—our first move, our knee-jerk reaction, our immediate response?
I don’t know what it is you might be facing, but I’m certain you’re up against something.
Family struggles, drama with a friend, health concerns, financial worries; maybe the Enemy is after you, tempting you and discouraging you and feeding you lies.
Life is hard.
David is here, as on every page of the psalms, facing something.
His mortal enemies (v.
9) have him surrounded.
It’s not a good situation, whatever it is.
And so he cries out to the Lord in prayer.
I don’t know how long it took him to get there, but I can see David dropping to his knees, falling facedown on the ground, crying out and pleading his case to the Lord:
In this instance, David has not messed up.
He is innocent here, not perfectly innocent of all wrongdoing, but innocent of what his enemies are charging him with.
David’s plea, he says, is just (v. 1).
He’s not being deceitful (v.
2).
David is in the right.
He’s keeping himself on the straight and narrow.
There are times, maybe often, when you can honestly say, “I’ve done nothing wrong here!
Why is this happening?
What’s going on!”
Rather than getting angry with God, David pleads his case and presents his arguments.
In this instance, David’s life is not a barrier to the Lord’s hearing (something the psalmist alludes to in Psalm 66)—
This should lead us to a very candid self-examination as we pray.
Am I being disobedient to the Lord?
Am I being selfish?
Is there a wrong I need to make right?
Have I offended my brother or sister?
Are my priorities in order?
We can always cry out to the Lord.
But when we’re able to cry out and argue our case with integrity and without deceit, we can expect to meet the God who hears.
>David continues praying, crying out to God, all the while teaching us to pray and why to pray:
Why do we pray?
Why should we?
Cry Out to God Because He Loves You
Okay, let’s not get all sentimental, all gushy and cutesy.
It’s not enough to say that God loves you.
It sounds nice.
It’s a sweet thought.
But if God loves you in the way that you “love” cheesecake or in the way you “love” your JH boyfriend, you don’t have much.
It’s not enough to say that God loves you.
We need to try to express what David’s getting at in verse 7; verse 7, you see, is the heart of the psalm.
David prays:
“Great love” is not a bad translation, but it’s not enough; it doesn’t quite get there.
This word “great love” is the word hesed—that is, this is the covenant love of God, the lovingkindness of God, the faithful love of God.
So, to express it, we need to say something like this:
Cry Out to God Because He Loves You Steadfastly
If God only loves you as much as you “love” going to the movies, there’s nothing there to write home about and certainly nothing to stake your life upon.
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