Let's read together now Psalm 54. Psalm 54 as a whole will be the text of our sermon this evening. The heading reads, to the chief musician on Neganoth, Maskeel, a psalm of David, when the Ziphims came and said to Saul, doth not David hide himself with us? Psalm 54, this is the word of the Lord. Save me, O God, by thy name, and judge me by thy strength. Hear my prayer, O God. Give ear to the words of my mouth, for strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul. They have not set God before them. Selah. Behold, God is mine helper. The Lord is with them that uphold my soul. He shall reward evil unto mine enemies, cut them off in thy truth. I will freely sacrifice unto thee. I will praise thy name, O Lord, for it is good. For he hath delivered me out of all trouble, and mine eye hath seen his desire upon mine enemies. Thus ends our reading in Sacred Scripture. Again, that whole psalm is our text. From a certain point of view, people of God, every psalm is a prayer. Not all of them are so explicitly so, but all of them do really have that element. I remind you that at the beginning of this series we spoke of the book of Psalms in this way, as the divinely inspired prayers and praises of God's people. That characterizes the entirety of the book. All of them involve a communication with God and a pouring out of the heart, whether it be lamenting over circumstances or offering up praise to God or something else. And that makes choosing a text for this particular sermon of this series somewhat difficult. The series deals with elements of devotions and mostly We've been looking at these different elements sort of in a general kind of a way. But the Psalms aren't really about prayer so much as they are prayer. So that we very well could have had this sermon on any number of other texts from the book. But even still, Psalm 54 is helpful for this sermon in a couple of different ways. One, because even though it is a prayer, it includes prayer about prayer. In verse 2, David asks that God would hear his prayer and speaks of praying with his mouth. In addition, it incorporates multiple elements which are instructive to us as we seek to understand prayer and how we might pray ourselves, and we'll call attention to those things. There is a guideline, a general guideline, that is often suggested for finding content in prayer, and it is the acronym ACTS, standing for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. Adoration, speaking to God of how great and how worthy He is. Confession, acknowledging our guilt and seeking forgiveness from God. Thanksgiving, expressing our gratitude to our God. And then supplication, bringing our cares, our needs, and our requests to Him. Those four elements can be found here in Psalm 54. We're going to take note of how Psalm 54 points to these things. And that's helpful for us to think about as we engage in this beautiful, wonderful blessing of a task that is prayer. but that is also highly difficult and one for which we need much assistance and much grace from our God. So let's consider Psalm 54 with the theme, A Prayer for Deliverance by Our Helper. A Prayer for Deliverance by Our Helper. First, we'll notice that this is prayer for deliverance. Second, that it is prayer of confidence. And finally, that it is prayer of commitment, a prayer for deliverance by our Helper, prayer for deliverance, prayer of confidence, prayer of commitment. We begin then by considering prayer itself briefly. Prayer, we might define this way. as direct communication with God in our souls through Jesus Christ. Direct communication with God in our souls through Jesus Christ. David mentions the words of his mouth, but obviously that is not a requirement for prayer. Since prayer can be both spoken and silent, What is vital is that it comes from the heart and that's why the definition we just gave speaks of the soul. Communication with God, direct communication with God in our souls. through Jesus Christ. And don't miss that this is direct communication so that we can go to God Himself. We can speak with God. We can pour out our heart, express our gratitude, bring our praise, and all the rest without anything standing in the way between us and our Heavenly Father as we pray in the name of Jesus. David did exactly that in verse 1. He addresses God himself, save me, oh God, by thy name. And then in verse two, hear my prayer, oh God. Verse six, I will praise thy name, oh Lord. He directly addresses, directly communicates with his God. This is simply a normal matter of the Christian life. Prayer characterizes us. from day to day. Lord's Day 45 speaks of prayer as the chief part of our thanks. And if we are indeed thankful for our salvation, we will be a praying people. The saints of the Old Testament did it. You can find all sorts of examples. Jesus Himself prayed. And you can find many, many examples of that too. And the fact that He prayed and prayed as often as He did tells us, by the way, how necessary this is for us. If Jesus prayed, and prayed frequently, so too We must and we need prayer. And then the saints throughout the New Testament did it as well. And again, you can find many examples. Because it is direct communication with God, it really can be done anywhere and anytime. It's not just a matter of before you eat a meal or when you are about to go to bed at night or what have you. Prayer really can be done in such circumstances as driving down the road on your way to run an errand or something happens to wake you up at three in the morning as you're lying in bed and because of it now you bring a prayer to God for your family or for your parents or for your children. Why we do it, we could give a couple of reasons as to why we pray. One of those might be that we have a great need for prayer and only God can provide for our needs. We have great spiritual needs, chiefly the forgiveness of sins but also grace to resist temptation, growth in holiness, and then other needs too regarding our trials and regarding the physical necessities of life and health and more besides. So that's one reason why we would pray. We have a great need and only God can provide. But then secondly, we have a great cause for praise and gratitude. Remember, prayer is the chief part of thanks. We have great cause for thanks. God has done so much for us. He has given us so much. And prayer is how we can express thanks and praise for these things. How we do that is through Jesus Christ. Let's not miss that. It's a very vital reality. Prayer is through Christ. It's through His shed blood that we have access to God. It's through that same shed blood that He continues to intercede for us, as we heard about earlier today. And then, we also do this reliant upon God's grace. Notice, did you notice, rather, when we read Psalm 54, that David prays that God would hear his prayer. In verse 2, hear my prayer, O God, give ear to the words of my mouth. That shows a total reliance upon God. Not on his own worth, not on his own meritorious nature, and his deserving to be heard by God, but he's totally reliant on God's grace. Hear me, oh God. If prayer is indeed direct communication with God through Jesus Christ, then it is an amazing gift. And we have a cause there for thanksgiving in prayer all by itself. It's the very reality of prayer. It gives us cause for gratitude. It is, as we said a moment ago, a normal matter, the norm of the Christian life. So is it for you? Are we praying? If we are not, we are very spiritually unhealthy because we desperately need it. Remember, Jesus did this frequently. How much more do not we need frequently to call upon our Father through Him? And how could we not want to if it is direct communication with God in Christ? Why would we not pray? What a gift. Admittedly, there are some situations when we feel as though we can't. There are times when, on account of some enormous trial, we feel that we simply can't even pray. We don't have the words. It almost feels as though we don't know how anymore. That's real. That can happen to God's people. If that's true of you this evening, then remember the words of the book of James. He tells such a person in such a state as that to call for the elders of the church, that they might come and pray with you and help you in that great trial. Even if you can't seem to do it right now, it is needed. It's needed. for you in your Christian life. And so please, if you are in such circumstances, get help, call your elders, ask them to come, ask them to pray with you, to encourage you in that way and bring you the good news of the word of God. David offers up a prayer seeking deliverance. It comes out in verse 1 already. He prays that God would save him by his name. It's a plea that God would get him out of harm's way, remove him from the danger, save him from the peril in which he is. To make that prayer, you understand, is to make an admission. It is to make an admission that you cannot save yourself. David was making that confession. He could not rescue himself. He needed help in order to be saved from danger. And if left to himself, he was going to perish. To pray for being saved is to confess that he needs a deliverer. So to pray that requires humbling one's self. Pride says you can deliver yourself just fine. You don't need any assistance even when in reality you absolutely do. You cannot deliver yourself and you need help. Pride says not to ask for it and to be confident in self alone. To acknowledge your inability and ask for someone else to save is then a reflection of a God-worked humility. David had that. He prays that this salvation would be done by God's name. God, the powerful God, the God of sovereignty, the only God who could save. But the focus here of name, save me by thy name, is given by the next part of the verse when we read, judge me by thy strength. That tells us what specifically is meant by name here. He prays that God would judge him by his strength. And it is not the typical word for strength in the Old Testament. This is a word that is related to the idea of prevailing. To prevail. And so to say, judge me by that strength, would mean judge me righteous, as I know that I am, and vindicate me. So in light of the rest of the Psalm, David's prayer is, vindicate me by destroying or prevailing over these foes that I have. That brings us to the need that David has for this prayer. His need is expressed in verse 3. For strangers are risen up against me and oppressors seek after my soul. They have not set God before them. He has foes, and he must be delivered from those foes. And in fact, he even calls them his enemies. In verse 5, he shall reward evil unto mine enemies. They are those who afflicted David, who sought to destroy David. He faced others persecuting him, foes filled with hatred opposing him, opposing his kingship. He was not yet king at this time. but opposing even the idea of his becoming king, even though God himself had appointed him and anointed him through Samuel to be the king of the Israelites. This prayer of David in verse 3 and in verse 1, coupled with verse 3, fits in with the S, that acronym, ACTS. To make this petition was for David to bring a supplication before God. It was to make a request of him based on his own circumstances and to seek from God a resolution to this matter. And the historical context gives us an understanding of what exactly it was that David was experiencing and why he made this earnest, earnest plea. The heading in Psalm 54 is informative. When the Ziphites came and said to Saul, doth not David hide himself with us? If that is indeed an accurate heading, then this refers to one of two situations in David's life. We're not sure which one, but there were two different occasions when David was fleeing away from Saul, hiding from him in the wilderness, and the Ziphites, children of Judah who lived in the wilderness of Ziph, turned on David and reported to Saul where he was hiding. to try to get David captured. Those occurrences are found in 1 Samuel 23 and 1 Samuel 26. In 1 Samuel 23, we even read that when the Ziphrites came to Saul and reported of David's whereabouts, Saul blessed them in the name of Jehovah. How brazen was that, to bless in Jehovah's name these men who report to him where David is so that he might kill David. Saul asked them for a more specific location and so they were going to seek it but in the end David escaped because he went one way around a mountain while Saul and his men went the other way around and then Saul was called back to go and fight with the Philistines. With that in mind, the first dynamic here, the first meaning, when David says in verse 3, oppressors seek after my soul, is life. They are seeking my life. Saul and others wanted to kill him. The reason for their opposition to him, we know from the history, to be a hatred of David and of his taking the throne soon. It's expressed even here in the psalm, and it's expressed in this way at the end of verse three, that they have not set God before them. Saul and the Ziphites and others had not set God before their eyes, meaning they had not been serving him. They didn't have him on their minds. They didn't have him before their spiritual eyes. And in fact, they didn't want to. They had no desire to serve God. And so they weren't concerned with doing as God had commanded. They hated David and they hated the fact that he had put God before himself and that he did desire to serve the Lord. But that leads directly into the second dynamic, the second aspect of what David says in verse 3. There is a spiritual dynamic as well. The foes were not just people who wanted to kill David physically and bring his physical life to an end. These were also people that the devil was using to oppose God's will that David become the king. and especially to oppose God's will that the Messiah come through the line of King David. Some of these people probably hated David exactly because he served Jehovah. These foes had not set God before themselves, and so they were not serving God, and they didn't want to, and they hated David who did. On top of all of that, as if that weren't already enough, on top of that, David also has another foe, the spiritual foe that is his sin and his sinfulness, a greater enemy than any other. So here, too, he asked for help. Here, too, he prayed that God would save. He knew that he could not rescue himself but needed God to do it. And God graciously then had humbled him so that he would see that need. Implied then, at the very least, is the C of that acronym, ACT. There's at the very least an implied confession of his own sins and of his own spiritual weakness and his need for deliverance from it. Sila. The specific meaning of that word Sila is not so clear. It is believed to be some sort of musical term because the Psalms were songs that were sung by the Israelites. Usually it's seen as a sort of pause, a time to consciously reflect on what has just been said or sung. And so, David says, save me, judge me, hear my prayer because I have these many foes who have not set God before themselves and who hate me and who seek my life, Selah. He pauses to reflect before he moves forward, to reflect on his own circumstances and to reflect on the prayer that he is making. God would hear him and save him. The spiritual dynamic of what David prays in verse 3 applies to us. We are unable to rescue ourselves from our spiritual foes. They seek to destroy us and we cannot do anything to fight them off. We need help. We need a deliverer and it's only through Christ It's only God, through Christ His Son, who can deliver us from our state of misery, from the spiritual danger in which we are. Seeing that need requires that we be humbled. We already referred to Lord's Day 45 once. Lord's Day 45 also mentions that in order to pray rightly, we need to have an understanding of our misery. We need to see our own state, our need for salvation, by God's grace in order to pray aright. And God graciously does that too, exposes our need and drives us in prayer to the cross. And so we pray with David, judge It's an earnest, earnest plea that God would judge our righteousness, a righteousness that we have from Jesus Christ, that He would prevail against our foes. And so we seek, they seek, rather, our souls, and they have not set God before their eyes, and so we pray that He would judge them. that he would prevail over them, that he would put them to shame and bring them low, put them to flight. We are and we will be hated. We do have foes and we will have continually more and more of them as we move closer to the end of days. Some of them even are will be within the church, just like how the Ziphites were children of Judah, who had every reason to be fighting alongside of David and supporting him, and instead turned on him and betrayed him to King Saul. We need to be prepared for that. And in fact, we even need to expect this. for ourselves as we continue through the Christian life. Regarding devotions, we can make a couple of applications as well. Prayer should be a major element of our personal devotions. Devotions in general, and then meditation and prayer specifically, are, from a certain point of view, silas of the Christian life. They're times to pause. think, and to commune with God for all that He has done for us. Prayer, though, is extremely difficult. There are no two ways about it, as we say. No one can do this perfectly. And yet, we can find help in doing it, through God's Word, especially. And then, even from conversing with another member of the church, perhaps an aged, wise member who is experienced and has insight that they can provide, suggestions as to how to pray more appropriately. And then, of course, we can ask God for His grace to hear us in our prayers, as David does. As we pray in our devotions, one thing that we can do is incorporate in our prayer that which we have just read. That forces us to focus more as we are reading. It forces us to understand what we are reading. and it enriches the content of our prayer. So that if you read Psalm 54 for your personal devotions, you might then afterward pray and include in your prayer, a prayer for being saved from your own foes, from your sins. Or a prayer that God would judge you by His prevailing strength. Or you might pray for those around you who have not set God before their eyes, that they would be led to do so, led to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Another thing that we can do is let our own circumstances drive the content of our prayers. And perhaps that's obvious, but it still bears noting. David does that, verse 3, very clearly. And so, if you are struggling with something, specifically name it before God, bring it before Him, and ask for the grace, the comfort, that you need in this particular trial. If you are uncertain about where God is leading, then specifically bring it before Him and seek His guidance and grace. If you're joyful over good news that you have heard or over the good news, then bring that before God and praise Him, give Him thanks for this. Praying aloud is another helpful thing that we can do because it's so easy for us to let our thoughts wander, but in our personal devotions we ought to go to a place where we can be free from distractions as much as possible and where we will not distract others and then we might well speak aloud our prayer to him, which again will help us to focus as we do so. David did that. Verse 2, Hear my prayer, O God, give ear to the words of my mouth. Before he wrote this down, he prayed it, and he prayed it aloud. And then we can also pray for other people. We have a great tendency to focus exclusively on ourselves, and it is good that we pray concerning our own needs and our own circumstances, but we should not do that exclusively. It's good to pray also for others, to think of others that we might pray for, family and friends and fellow believers, church and missions, unbelievers who need to hear the gospel and so forth. As we do this, we can think of the ACT model for prayer, helpful in organizing our thoughts and especially helpful in remembering what we ought to pray about as we enter into God's presence. Prayer ought also to be a major element of devotions as families and as couples. Family devotions can include a prayer that reflects on what was just read in the scripture reading and then that brings before God the needs of the family in particular. Family devotions might also incorporate asking someone else to pray. It's good and indeed it's proper. It ought to be that the father, the husband, leads in devotions. But it is also good that on occasion he asks the wife or the children to lead in prayer. And then we might even ask around the table for prayer suggestions, which is a good way of getting the children all the more invested in what we are doing. Couples can incorporate prayer and ought to incorporate prayer in their devotions and in their marriages in general as well. Praying together is a wonderful means of growing closer and of expressing your love for one another. can incorporate prayer for the marriage itself and asking for grace to fulfill the callings that you have as husband and wife according to God's Word. 1 Peter 3 verse 7 speaks of prayers not being hindered between husbands and wives, which presupposes that they are happening. It ought to be that in our marriages there is prayer. The prayer of David is a prayer for deliverance. It is also a prayer of great confidence. Verses 5 and 7 express boldness before God. He shall reward evil unto mine enemies, cut them off in thy truth. For he hath delivered me out of all trouble, and mine eyes hath seen his desire upon mine enemies. He has confidence because this is a prayer of faith. Trust in God, faith, which is knowledge and confidence. He prays that God would cut off his foes. The prayer is that God would bring them to an end, that he would put them down, put them to shame. He prays that God would do that in his truth or his faithfulness. He is the covenant God. He is true to his covenant, true to his son David. He is faithful. And now David prays that God would show himself faithful in this particular circumstance as well. And in a fascinating way, he states, states, that God will return their evil or reward their evil. The word reward could be translated return, so that God will return upon their own heads the evil that they have wrought. And he doesn't even pray that part of the prayer as a request or a petition in verse five. He just states it. He states that it will be. So confident is he in his God that he does not even request this. He confesses it. He isn't doubting that God will hear, that God will judge, and that God will put down the foe. David has knowledge of all that God has revealed in his word, and he has confidence that it is true for him. Such boldness ought to characterize our prayer too. God will not leave us to foes either, but he will deliver us. So that we can pray the words of Psalm 27. Verse 1, the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? We can have confidence that God will indeed deliver, deliver from our greatest foe of our sin and sinfulness. And then, this should characterize our other prayers as well. All of our praying in every setting, including different types of devotions, can be bold. And that's true because of Jesus Christ, who gives us the access to the throne room of God. That leads us then into the second part of this second point, the why. Why does David have this confidence? Why does he have this boldness? Four things that we can say that come out of the psalm. as to why he is confident. In the first place, we have what he says at the end of verse four. The Lord is with them that uphold my soul. There are others who are upholding his soul. There are others with him who are supporting him. They are encouraging him. And so he was not totally despairing, even in this great trial. But then secondly, and more importantly than that, they are sustained by the Lord. The Lord is with them that uphold my soul. God is with them as the sovereign Lord. He controls all things. He guides all circumstances for the good of his people. And he will guide even through the support of these friends so that David is encouraged and built up and is kept safe in this great trial. Number three is that he looks to the past record. of what God has done. Faith includes knowledge, and he knows what God has done. Because of that knowledge, now he is confident. It comes out in verse 7. For he hath delivered me out of all trouble, and mine eye hath seen his desire upon mine enemies. It seems that David writes the entire Psalm in the midst of his trouble and then reminds himself at the end. of the past. God has delivered me in the past. I have seen his deliverance with my own eyes. Surely God will do it again." Fourth, and above all, God is his helper. This psalm utilizes a rhetorical device, or a poetical device, known as chiasm. What chiasm means is basically this. If you were to write the whole psalm out with one verse per line, so that it's all in a vertical arrangement, but with each verse, you moved over a little bit, so that it starts a little bit further over until you get to the midway point of the psalm, and then go back the other way as you come back down, so that you end up with this sort of a shape. a greater than sign, as it were. That is the structure of chiasm, and that's the structure of this psalm, so that the verses at the beginning and the end correspond, and then the verse next closest to the beginning and next closest to the end correspond, and so forth, until you come to the middle. Verse 1. Corresponds with verse 7. Verse 2. Corresponds with verse 6. I will freely sacrifice. I will praise thy name for its good. And you can go all the way through until you end at the heart of the psalm. And what is the heart of the psalm? It's verse 4a. Behold, God is mine helper. He helps me. That's the heart of David's prayer. He is the one who gives me aid. He is the one who supports and sustains David when he can't do it alone. Behold, take note of this. Take heed. Look. Believe it. What a great God. And that's the A of acts. Adoration. Only God is worthy of our adoration. David does it. He extols him as his one and only helper. And, of course, you know that centrally it is Christ who is David's helper and who is our helper. Helper from our spiritual foes as deliverer. That, ultimately, is why there can be confidence in prayer. It's through Christ. In the sermon earlier today, we made reference briefly to Hebrews 13, 5. It applies very well here too. Hebrews 13, 5 and 6. At the end of verse 5, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee, so that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Faith rests on the rock, Jesus Christ, and it rests on the rock-solid foundation of the salvation that He has wrought on the cross. Our prayers, then, ought especially to be an expression of confidence in our God, what He has done, and the fact that He is our Helper, and He is our Helper in His Son, Jesus Christ. So, in our prayers for the devotions, in the prayers of our devotions, the same thing ought to be true as well. We reflect on what God has done in Christ, and then we have great cause, great cause for confidence in prayer, especially confidence regarding our prayers for deliverance. We reflect on what God has done in His greatness as our helper, and then we have great cause for adoration for our God. And we can even do that as we pray. We can think about what the passage that we just read reveals about God and about His glory, and then taking that, we can utilize that in the adoration portion of our prayer. David makes a prayer for deliverance. He makes it with confidence. It is also a prayer of commitment. That comes out in verse 6. "'I will freely sacrifice unto Thee. I will praise Thy name, O Lord, for it is good.'" He says he will sacrifice to God, and that's the T of acts, thanksgiving. He is not compelled to do this. It is a freewill response to God's great grace shown unto him. Probably it was not possible for him to do it right then and there as he was fleeing away from King Saul out in the wilderness. He probably could not offer up a sacrifice in that moment. But so confident is he that he says he will offer one up later because he knows God's past work He knows who God is and what God has done for him and what God surely will do. And then he says that he will praise Jehovah's name. Once again, that's a matter of thanks. He will lift up his voice. He will lift up his heart and express his gratitude to God, his praises to God for this great deliverance, acknowledging God for who he is as helper and provider. He'll praise the name of Jehovah. Because there is none other name given under heaven among men by which we must be saved. There is none other name that delivers. And he commits himself to do this. That's the point of the future tense. I will. I promise, oh God, that I will. We, too, offer up our lives as sacrifices unto God with a confidence like unto David's. We resolve to, even now, and to praise Jehovah's name with thanks, lifting up our voices, lifting up our hearts. And so we keep on praying. It's a normal part of the Christian life. It's a way to express that gratitude to God. So why? Why the commitment? The reason he gives is the end of verse 6. "'I will freely sacrifice, I will praise thy name, for it is good.'" You notice, "'it is' is in italics. The sense is, he is good. God is good. That is why I will offer up my sacrifice of praise. That is why I will praise the name of Jehovah, because God is good. The goodness of God means he has no flaw of any kind. It includes numerous of the other attributes of God, his grace, his mercy, his love toward us, and so on. And he displays that goodness always, and he always has. That's how verse 7 connects here to this. God has done this. He always will. He's unspeakably good. Everything about him is good and because that's true, says David, I will praise Him. I will offer that sacrifice of praise. We have the same reason for gratitude. God is good. He is eminently good. And He's good to us, especially in His Son, Jesus Christ. So we give Him our thankful praise. He's displayed his goodness in his deliverance of us from all of our foes, just like with David, and he continues to do that. Devotions are always a matter of thanksgiving to God, motivated by God's goodness, whether it be individual devotions, or couples, or families. Prayer is part of that, as direct communication with God, and don't we want to? Don't we want to communicate directly with our God in the soul, through Jesus Christ, in light of all of these things? We have all the reason in the world for living our lives as thankful sacrifices to God. and for offering up our prayers of gratitude, prayers seeking deliverance, prayers of confession, and prayers of adoration, because God is good. Amen.