Please be seated and if you would turn with me back to our last portion of scripture that we read, Psalm 27. That is our text for this evening. The psalm that we take up this evening is a psalm that I suppose we have many of its kind in the Psalter. Its context is one that's very familiar to us, even up to this point in our time together in the Psalms. The psalmist is evidently as we see in these verses, removed from the tabernacle. And we're told why, we're told at the end of the day, he's been forced into exile through persecutors and those who are his false accusers. And so though a king, by anointing, by divine appointment, he is now without home, removed from his family, removed from the place of his heritage. a vagabond on the earth. Again, as I said to you already, this is of course a very familiar scene that we encounter throughout the Psalter. But this evening, I want us to begin by just asking a question. Knowing that David was a man after God's own heart, why does he pray in such a context? How does he pray? For what does he pray? I suppose in one sense, if I ask you those questions, the answer seems really straightforward. But this evening, the psalmist himself answers those questions for us in a way that's awfully deep. A way that really shows us the depth of biblical piety. A way that shows us that indeed, a man, a woman after God's own heart is a remarkable specimen of grace. And friend, I want you to notice that the psalmist does this by really doing two things. He begins by making a confession of his faith. And you see that in the first six verses. It's not petition that we meet with immediately. It's a confession of his confidence in the Lord. But then as you move from 17, sorry, from seven to verse 14, you notice that then the psalmist moves to petition. Here you find the psalmist dealing with God. the one in whom he has this confidence. And so friend, I want us to look at those two sections of the Psalm together and hold that division in front of us. And as we do so, I want us to see that really you and I have a glimpse, in some sense, an anatomy of biblical prayer. This is the prayer life of a man after God's own heart in the midst of adversity. What you and I see here as we look at this text in that light is that biblical prayer is a deep thing. And in many ways, friend, we'll see this evening, it's even a complex thing in several regards. I suppose we should expect that. This is dealing with the Most High God. Friend, I also want you to see here that in this text, we have a pattern for ourselves. It shows us the depth. and the complexity that our own lives must have if we are to be men and women after God's own heart. And as we hold all of these verses together, you'll notice that there is, I suppose, a theme that you could distill quite readily, and that is that the psalmist shows us that the godly seek mercy by faith and in due proportion. or proportion, that is the godly seek mercy by faith and in due order. A friend for us to see this, I want us to look just at first of all, the first six verses. And I want us to see there the exercise of this faith. Begin here and see what this faith does in its working. A friend as you do so, I want you to notice there are a number of things that come out to us immediately. I want you to notice that this functions from the very beginning as a prelude to his praying. Not just in terms of the order of the psalm, but really it becomes a logical prelude, a logical basis for why he prays in the latter half of the composition. And the reason is because he is confident in the Lord, his God. He goes to a God in whom he rests and reposes utterly, such that he says, whom shall I fear? He says, in the midst of great difficulty, he says, and even in this, he says, will I be confident? He says, the Lord will hide him. These are all expressions of faith. And he begins here. And he shows us really the character of this faith in these first six verses. He shows first of all, the grounds of this faith. He says, the Lord is my light, my salvation, my strength. Friend, from whence does the psalmist gain that information? He gains it, of course, from the promises of God, where God says he undertakes to be such for those who come to him by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so immediately you and I are confronted with the fact that the psalmist, he goes to God, holding the promises of God steadfast. These are the grounds of his faith. He's not presuming, he's resting on divine promise. But then friend to encourage his faith, I want you to notice that he takes up an instrument. There's a tool that the psalmist uses here to encourage that faith. Look back with me if you would at our text, back to verse two. And you'll notice the psalmist becomes quite reflective. He thinks about the past. Though he is in present adversity, he thinks about what God has done in the time past. And what does he say? He says of his enemies, he says, they stumbled and fell. What is the psalmist doing? He's taking past mercy. And he is saying, this is a ground of his hope. And therein is a Christian duty. He reflects upon the Lord's previous kindnesses to him. And he uses them in a moment such as this to encourage his faith. Friend, every mercy we receive ought to be stored as does the psalmist. Every mercy is supposed to be in reserve as it were. to remind us of the Lord's mercies and so to encourage our faith as we see the psalmist doing here. But I want you to notice not only do we find the ground, not only do we find the tools that the psalmist uses to encourage his faith, but I want you to notice the purpose or the end for which he's praying. Here you see, friend, a man after God's own heart. And you see it in a way that's quite explicit. You see that in verse four, where he says, one thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after. One thing, one thing. A friend, the man here is in exile. He's removed again from his own family. He's removed from the comforts of home. He's placed among strangers. And he says one thing, one thing have I desired of the Lord. Friend, if you and I heard that, you and I would be tempted to think that was hyperbole. We know it wasn't. This is an expression of the psalmist's heart. And so what does he crave? What is the chiefest thing that he craves from God in the text? And friend, it is that he would be found in the Lord's house. And friend, first of all, we need to understand that in its original context and recognize he's talking about the means of grace. I don't know if that strikes you, but he is genuinely saying the one thing that I crave from the Lord above all of the other mercies that I'll ask of him. is that I will be under the means of grace. And I don't know if that strikes you, but I think it should. He's saying more than he craves his own bed, more than he craves the comforts of home and even the fellowship of his family, he longs to be under the means of grace. If you just meditate on that, friends, at any length of time, and you'll see how far we've fallen. The psalmist says, of all that I would ask, it is to be under those means. But I want you to notice, friend, why he wants to be under the means. He wants to see the beauty of the Lord. Beloved, this is not a kind of formal religiosity in the psalmist. Why is he so attracted to the worship of God? Why does he long to be in the house of God? It's not out of mere habit. It's because he wants to see Jehovah. Because of all things, he loves God. He loves God more than any other mercy that he'll ask of him. He loves and he longs to peer upon the Lord's beauty more than he loves life. That's the entailment. Before he asks for longevity, he says, I desire this, that I might under the means of grace, behold the beauty of the Lord. My friend, he doesn't stop there. As you notice in what follows, there's a confidence that the Lord indeed will be his refuge that he will undertake for him. And he says there that he will hide him in his pavilion. Now the word pavilion there is not the word for tabernacle. It's the word often used for a shepherd's hut. It's a place where the shepherd would keep his sheep in the midst of storm or danger. And he says, the Lord will do so with me. He will hide me. Now, friend, I want you to notice that the psalmist doesn't even stop there, because in the next verse, in verse six, you notice that after he is confident that he will know the Lord's goodness, that he will know the Lord's mercy, you notice that the psalmist then goes on to say what he will do in response. And he promises to respond with thanksgiving. And you and I, we ought to take the verse that way. He is saying upon receiving this mercy, he will return thanks, that's a vowel. He is saying that in response to the Lord's kindness to him, he will live in thanksgiving. My friend, as you look at these verses, what you recognize here, is this is all a prelude to prayer. You find that the psalmist, he doesn't enter into prayer thoughtlessly. He doesn't enter into prayer unprepared. Look just again at the verses that we've seen and see the kind of work that the psalmist has done. Look at how he's exercised faith in the promises of God. Before he stirs himself up to the throne of grace, he takes the promises of grace with him first. Not only does he do that, but he takes up even instruments, tools to encourage his faith in the work. Then on top of that, you see that he's exercised in self-examination. Again, as you look at that fourth verse, he's saying that whatever I crave, it is in subordination to this, to the love of God, to the interest and to the glory of God. And finally, you recognize here that even, friend, at the end of this sixth verse, you have an expression that the psalmist goes to the means of grace with renewed repentance, with renewed vows to be the Lord's. Friend, take these six verses as a prelude to his praying and you recognize that prayer is certainly not a thoughtless exercise. It's not a work that David enters into without due preparation. His faith is lodged in the promises. He has, as it were, set his heart out before the Lord. And he is renewing his vows even in the work to be the Lord's. And so this is the exercise of the psalmist faith, first of all. One of his praying itself. And so we look at the seventh verse to the 12th. Now, as you look at these verses, you notice that, of course, he begins with his petition, hear, O Lord. And so the psalmist begins by praying to God, but we'll see in just a moment time that not only does he pray to God, but God speaks to the psalmist. What you suddenly realize here, friend, is that the psalmist is giving us a picture of communion with God. He's not just meditating upon the Lord. This is not as it were a unilateral exercise. He is praying to God and the Lord God is dealing with him. Friend, here you and I see the experience of the life of faith. Here you and I begin to see more clearly the depth of biblical prayer, what it looks like and what attends it. Take first of all what we find there again in the seventh verse. He prays that the Lord would hear him when he cries. The word cry there is of course a forceful word. It is in the English as well as in the Hebrew. It is the sound of one in extremity, under great affliction and a man who is sensible of his difficulty. So we notice here, friend, first of all, that the work that the psalmist engages in is certainly, it is not a cold, a formal exercise. The psalmist is exercised, really. His affections are engaged in the work. As you look at the very next verse, you notice, friend, that here you see the Lord dealing with the psalmist. So the psalmist has prayed to God, but he cites his own experience here. Now, in our translations, it begins, that eighth verse, when thou saidst, seek ye my face. Now, it's a complex sentence in the Hebrew, but friend, what you really ought to understand there is that he's saying, when the Lord said to my heart, in fact, the Dutch annotations put it this way, The psalmist is saying, I do hear thee in my heart. I hear thee in my heart. And what does he hear? He says, seek ye my face. Now here's something else that's quite deep. The words seek ye my face are directed not to an individual, but to a plurality of people. It is you, plural, that's there. In fact, you could transliterate it. Seek you people, my face. The question is, what is the psalmist saying that the Lord has spoken to him? Friend, the answer is really straightforward. It is the word of God generally given to the people of God that the psalmist hears in his heart. In other words, in this eighth verse, the psalmist is saying that he heard God through the scriptures speaking in his heart. Friend, you can dice, cut and take away aspects of the text all you like, but at the end of the day, the psalmist is saying the Lord God by his spirit has prompted him under the sound of his word to seek his face. We'll come back to that in a moment, but I want you to notice, friend, after he says he will indeed comply, he then makes another petition. And friend, this next petition is crucial to what's gone before because he says, put not thy servant away in anger. Put not thy servant away in anger. I suppose we could read over those words quite quickly. My friend, it's important for us to note that God is never displeased without cause. All of God's anger is just. All of his displeasure is merited. My friend, universally, that displeasure is merited by sin. If you remember that and you read this petition, And friend, there is no way to escape the fact that the psalmist is praying, do not deal with me according to what my sins deserve. If there is no unjust or unrighteous anger in God, then he is saying, do not deal with me according to what my sins deserve, according to the rigor of the law. He is saying here pointedly, do not deal with me as I have merited. Friend, it is of course then a plea for pardon. And here you see something of the life of faith that is so, I think so often overlooked. And that is that friend, the life of the believer in making supplications as does the psalmist in this case, it's utterly unlike anything you find in the world. A businessman, he has faith that the person with whom he's made an agreement will honor his end of the agreement. And so give in return what is due to him, what he deserves. An employee has faith that his employer will pay him the wages that he deserves. But in this Psalm, you find that the godly man says, do not deal with me according to what I deserve. In fact, the psalmist is praying that God would do the opposite entirely, that he would give him kindness and grace that he never had and never could merit. It shows you, friend, what is remarkable about the exercise of faith. And here you see the psalmist even moving boldly in it. But then as you look at verses 11 and 12, you find friend of the psalmist pits all of these things, all of these petitions in a context that would seem almost desperate. He starts by entertaining the idea of the loss of parental care. And then at the end of verse 12, he says, I'll be surrounded by false accusers or witnesses. What is he saying? He's saying that even in a context, even in a context where I would expect help and do not find it, or in a context where I'd find myself almost impossibly, impossibly beset with enemies, still I will expect the Lord's help. From what is he saying there? He's saying pointedly But friend, if you were to take away every means, every instrument that might've been used for the psalmist's good, if you take away all of those things that used to do him good in the past, he's saying, still, I will hope in the Lord. Take away his home, take away his parents, take away his friends, put him in the midst of enemies, cunning enemies, take away every means one might imagine that could do him good. Still the Lord, he says, will undertake for him. What you see here is that from then the godly, they acknowledge God's mercy and prayer as it is God's free grace. And they acknowledge that mercy in such a way as that it came to them not by merit, and that it came to them from God, such that they don't credit the means for the goodness they receive. As we close friend, I want you to notice that verses 13 and 14 provide for us something of a conclusion. And it's a conclusion that ultimately terminates an exhortation. The exhortation, the main exhortation is what you find in verse 14, where you have the repeated cry to wait on the Lord. And we should take that friend as the psalmist speaking to himself, he's taking his soul as it were in hand. He's commanding himself as he does all throughout the Psalter to mind these truths and to hold himself to them. But what is the ground? What is the reason for the command? You see that in verse 13, where the psalmist says there pointedly that he would have fainted That's the sense our translators quite rightfully supply for us the meaning. He's saying, I would have been undone had I not believed that he would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. We need to recognize that that certainly did have a very specific reference in its original context to the promises that were made uniquely to David. Beloved, as we've seen already throughout the Psalter, The main promises that David held himself to were those that were generally applicable to all of God's people. And the same Solomon is going to say, he's going to say that even afflictions were good to him. That even afflictions were expressions of God's faithfulness towards him. So the goodness that you and I see in this text, it should not be restricted only to material wealth and material deliverance. The psalmist is really speaking about good in its biblical sense. And what is he saying here? He's saying that in the land of the living, he will see himself, the goodness of the Lord. Let it be in great blessing. Or as we sing in Psalm 119, even in the midst of affliction, he says, in the land of the living, I will see myself. the goodness of the Lord. And that leads us to the exhortation to wait. Biblical waiting, it's not a passive thing. It's not something that is without any kind of exercise. In fact, it's quite the opposite. If you remember back to Psalm 26, we remember that waiting in the biblical sense, it's the idea of stretching or straining towards someone or something. It's an exercise. It's something that stretches. For what does the waiting on the Lord then look like? Well, to answer that, all you need to go back to is the first six verses of the Psalm, where you see the exercise of his faith. What does it look like to wait on God? Well, friend, it looks like men and women who take themselves to the divine promises. who hold themselves there and cling to them, even in the midst of greatest adversity. It looks like men and women who make use of the means of God's grace, even God's past mercies to them to encourage that faith. It looks like men and women who are exercised in the work of weighing their own hearts, who are engaged in introspection to make sure that whatever they ask of the Lord is in due proportion and subordination to the love of God and the interest of God. And from the exercise of faith, the waiting upon the Lord that's described in this text includes men and women freshly renewing their vows to be the Lord's, to live in thankful obedience to Him. Waiting on God is not a passive thing. It's not the work of a quietest, it's not the work of a stoic, it's not the work of a monk. Friend, waiting on the Lord as these first six verses show us, and even as the prayer evidences, it's a very active thing. And so we close, friend, by asking actually the very questions that we began with. But we need to ask them in such a ways to acknowledge that this is supposed to be our example. So friend, why do you pray? Why do you pray? Do you go before God, friend, with the kind of expectation that the psalmist has, that God is your salvation, that he'll make you more than conqueror over that particular providence? Or do you engage in prayer as though it's an exercise in futility? where you expect no mercy from God. Friend, too often we are of the latter category in camp, but not this honest. He does not presume to dictate to God exactly how the Lord will show mercy, but he is confident in this, that God will show him goodness, even if in affliction in the land of the living. And so why do you pray? The second thing is, Friend, for us to ask, why am I praying for what I'm praying? The psalmist prays for mercy in this case, but as we see from the fourth verse that he doesn't crave mercy, he doesn't crave longevity, he doesn't even crave his own home and the removal of this affliction more than he loves God, more than he longs to see and so to serve him. So friend, why are you craving mercy this evening? Some would say, you know, we can't actually even ask the question because our hearts are deceitful. And that's certainly true. But the friend of the Psalmist shows us we need to ask the question. And by God's grace and through the ministry of his spirit and under the means of his grace, friend, we can know sincerely whether or not our motives are ultimately Godward. We also need to ask the question, friend, when I go before God and ask for mercy, Am I conscious that if he does show mercy, it is more than I deserve? In fact, am I conscious that every time I ask God to show mercy, I'm pleading for him simply not to deal with me as I deserve? I submit to you, friend, that if we prayed that way, beloved, our prayer lives would be very different. How humbly would we go before the Lord? Knowing that every time I ask for mercy, I am simply saying, do not deal with me as my sins deserve. But for our comfort, I want you to notice as we close, friend, that the psalmist is confident. Well, again, he does not prescribe to the Lord what means the Lord might take. He is confident the Lord will hide him. And he is confident that the Lord will make him to know his goodness in this life. in affliction and in mercy. The psalmist knows that he will know the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. My friend, he will know these things because he's in the Lord Jesus Christ. Beloved, the exhortation from this text, the exhortation is, Beloved, to take the Lord Jesus as he's clothed in the gospel, to take him in such a way as to make him the ground of every petition. Friend, to be as those who approach the Lord in Jesus with this kind of boldness, with this kind of humility, with this faith that knows indeed that we will know the Lord's goodness even in the land of the living because of him. Amen.