God Accepts Your Prayers

God accepts your prayers, hears your grieving, loves you and still allows us at times to feel distant from Him.

Opening:

David Jeremiah: Yet, still there is God.

The greatest take away from this psalm is that God’s steadfast love will deliver you from sorrow even if you do not know when or how.

Psalm 6 HCSB

For the choir director: with stringed instruments, according to Sheminith. A Davidic psalm. Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger; do not discipline me in Your wrath. Be gracious to me, Lord, for I am weak; heal me, Lord, for my bones are shaking; my whole being is shaken with terror. And You, Lord—how long? Turn, Lord! Rescue me; save me because of Your faithful love. For there is no remembrance of You in death; who can thank You in Sheol? I am weary from my groaning; with my tears I dampen my pillow and drench my bed every night. My eyes are swollen from grief; they grow old because of all my enemies. Depart from me, all evildoers, for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping. The Lord has heard my plea for help; the Lord accepts my prayer. All my enemies will be ashamed and shake with terror; they will turn back and suddenly be disgraced.

Pray

I arranged these by questions that may help you have words when you are speechless.

God, will you be faithful to show me mercy amidst my sorrow? 1-3

Psalm 6:1–3 “Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger; do not discipline me in Your wrath. Be gracious to me, Lord, for I am weak; heal me, Lord, for my bones are shaking; my whole being is shaken with terror. And You, Lord—how long?”

Explanation

This psalm does not contain any confession of sin, but David feels that he is being disciplined by the Lord.

The evidence of God's discipline is visible in the first few sets of parallel lines of the psalm.

Michael Wilcock explains that Hebrew poetry rhymes not in sound, but in meaning.

In verse 1, David uses the covenant name of his God, Yahweh, and pleads with beautiful parallelism.

Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger;

do not discipline me in your wrath.

Verse 2 provides the positive corollary to verse one:

Be gracious to me, Lord, for I am weak;

Heal me, Lord, for my bones are shaking.

Verse 3 intensifies David's experience and feelings from verses 1-2 and concludes with his cry of absolute brokenness due to God's absence.

My whole being is shaken with terror.

And you, Lord—how long?

The last line is hallowing. It is more about the level of pain vs the duration

David is going through a tough time.

He feels rebuked and disciplined and is experiencing anger, wrath, weakness, and fear.

He prays and waits for the Lord to bring grace and healing. If God doesn't show up soon, David fears he won't make it.

However, even God’s silence, while feeling abandoned, David continues to wait on God.

PSA. Our platitude statements do less than we think. Engaging people in their sin or sorrow requires mercy, compassion, and empathy.

Allen Ross helps by saying,

So the psalmist was weak, terrified, and anxious; his suffering at the hands of his enemies had wreaked havoc with his health and well-being. What made it so frustrating was that the Lord was silent and apparently willing to let him languish in pain and depression. He knew his suffering was divine discipline, so all he could do was appeal for a gracious deliverance.

Illustration

Separation for the sake of restoration.

Sometimes the silence helps us netter understand what is most important to us.

Application

Many others struggled as we do. Moses, Elijah, Jonah, Peter have all expressed similar feelings.

1 In those seasons continue to cry out, confess, do what is right and ask for God to be merciful

How long, Lord before you deliver me by your Faithful Love? 4-5

Psalm 6:4–5 “Turn, Lord! Rescue me; save me because of Your faithful love. For there is no remembrance of You in death; who can thank You in Sheol?”

Explanation

In verses 4-5, David requests the Lord to

turn, rescue, and save him,

appealing to the Lord's steadfast love.

He urgently needs God's help, knowing that only the grace and power of God can deliver him.

Argumentaion

David specifies in verse 5 that he needs the Lord to be gracious and act according to his faithful love because he is facing death, which is humanity's greatest enemy.

Death robs us of our ability to acknowledge and praise God, silencing our voices.

Sheol can mean different things depending on the context, but here it refers to the grave or death.

David feels it is do or die.

If He dies, who will live to praise the God of deliverance?

Illustration

I appreciate Calvin’s insight in verse 5:

“We know that we are placed on earth to praise God with one mind and one mouth and that this is the end of our life.”

Death puts an end to our witness.

However, this does not mean that the souls of the faithful, when separated from their bodies, lose their understanding or affection towards God.

Our physical voices may fall silent, but our existence endures.

This concept is evident in the New Testament, where we encounter the idea of "personal eschatology".

This refers to the belief that those who are in Christ will experience a glorious promise.

Paul summarizes this promise in

2 Corinthians 5:8–9 “and we are confident and satisfied to be out of the body and at home with the Lord. Therefore, whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to be pleasing to Him.”

Application

Remember to praise the Lord while you can, because death will silence your witness among the living.

But if you know Christ, death can’t take away the Lord’s presence.

We need to tell our stories and let people see our sorrow.

ANYTHING WORTH HAVING COMES AT A PRICE.

Our steadfast determination in the face of grief helps people see how much God matters to us

God, does your faithful eye see me in my grief? 6-7

Psalm 6:6–7 “I am weary from my groaning; with my tears I dampen my pillow and drench my bed every night. My eyes are swollen from grief; they grow old because of all my enemies.”

Explanation

These two verses express David's intense emotions of lamentation.

The verbs and nouns used in these verses are highly instructive and descriptive.

In verse 6, David reveals his weariness, his feelings of dampness and being drenched. He also mentions his groaning and tears.

In verse 7, he talks about his swollen eyes and how they grow old.

David also mentions his grief and his enemies.

*Notice that grief is as much of an enemy as his human foes.

Argumentation

He almost reaches the edge of a complete breakdown. The nights are especially difficult for him, as they bring darkness and silence.

People who experience depression or periods of grief and sorrow often find the nights to be unbearable.

Peter C. Craigie and Marvin E. Tate write,

“For most sufferers, it [is] in the long watches of the night, when silence and loneliness increase and the warmth of human companionship is absent, that the pain and the grief [reach] their darkest point”

If we're being truthful, we've all experienced times when we were:

- Too tired to get out of bed and dress up

- Too sad to go to work

- Too drained to get the kids ready for school

- Too fatigued to clean the house

- Too unhappy to go to church

- Too burdened to read the Bible

- Too sluggish to even pray.

Application

"You may feel like no one cares or hears your cries of pain and despair. But you're not alone. David is proof of that.

This is where the Grove Community needs to shine.

We all need to lock arms with one another.

We don’t rise to the occasion we fall back on our training.

Mission moment. Giving leads to grieving and grieving leads to giving.

Being accessible to people allows us to love and grieve with them.

‌Dinner and prayer: When you know someone is hurting.

Join a Small group.

Family is great but so is your church family: not everyone has what you have.

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Transition Statement

Build the community before you need the community. It’s hard, but it’s worth it.

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When Lord, will you accept the prayers of those faithful and deliver us? 8-10

‌ David has suffered emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Some of it may have been his fault (v. 1). Some of it was the result of attacks from his enemies (v. 10). Interestingly, he does not retaliate.

David addresses a group of evildoers and warns them about their sins. He does not specify their particular wrongdoings but tells them to depart as the Lord has heard his weeping and plea for help. David affirms the Lord's faithfulness and states that the Lord has accepted his prayer three times. Spurgeon suggests that the best remedy against an evil person is to maintain distance between them.

David concludes the psalm on a confident note, based on his assurance that his prayer has been answered. He makes four statements about the future of his enemies. Firstly, all of his enemies will be ashamed. Secondly, they will shake with terror. Thirdly, they will turn back. And fourthly, they will suddenly be disgraced.

H. C. Leupold summarizes this verse well by stating that David is as certain of the complete overthrow of his enemies as he is of the acceptance of his prayers. (Exposition, 89).

Psalm 22

God, will you be faithful to show me mercy amidst my sorrow?

Psalm 22:1–2 HCSB

My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from my deliverance and from my words of groaning? My God, I cry by day, but You do not answer, by night, yet I have no rest.

How long, Lord before you deliver me by your Faithful Love?

Psalm 22:19–22 HCSB

But You, Lord, don’t be far away. My strength, come quickly to help me. Deliver my life from the sword, my only life from the power of these dogs. Save me from the mouth of the lion! You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. I will proclaim Your name to my brothers; I will praise You in the congregation.

God, does your faithful eye see me in my grief?

Psalm 22:14–18 HCSB

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed; my heart is like wax, melting within me. My strength is dried up like baked clay; my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You put me into the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me; a gang of evildoers has closed in on me; they pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people look and stare at me. They divided my garments among themselves, and they cast lots for my clothing.

Psalm 22:24–25 HCSB

For He has not despised or detested the torment of the afflicted. He did not hide His face from him but listened when he cried to Him for help. I will give praise in the great congregation because of You; I will fulfill my vows before those who fear You.

When Lord, will you accept the prayers of your faithful and deliver us?

Psalm 22:20–21 HCSB

Deliver my life from the sword, my only life from the power of these dogs. Save me from the mouth of the lion! You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen.

Psalm 22:30–31 HCSB

Their descendants will serve Him; the next generation will be told about the Lord. They will come and tell a people yet to be born about His righteousness— what He has done.

Worship Team

The greatest take away from this psalm is that God’s steadfast love will deliver you even if you do not know when or how.

David cried out to the Lord and He is now in glory with God.

Jesus cried out in His own suffering and he was able to deliver those who believe in him.

THis is a national Hymn sung by Israel. It ends with David confident even though his circumstances have not changed. But he was certain that God would accept his prayers because He is a faithful God

The Nation of Israel could say the same and so can we.

DON’T LET YOUR GREIF ROB YOU OF YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO WITNESS

If you place your eyes on the Lord he will deliver you from your sorrow even if he doesn’t deliver you from your situation