Hear me Lord...

Hear me Lord… TEXT: Psalm 86:1-5 READ 1-10

MIM – If we are to interact with God, we must recognize who He is and approach Him in a worshipful attitude

Do you ever have bad days? I mean really bad days.

Army 1st Lt William Funchess had many bad days, and this is his story….

Illustration…

That same Bible he used contains the text that we will learn about today

Please turn in your Bibles to Psalms 86:1-10

1 Incline Your ear, O Lord, and answer me; For I am afflicted and needy.

2 Preserve my soul, for I am a godly man; O You my God, save Your servant who trusts in You.

3 Be gracious to me, O Lord,

For to You I cry all day long.

4 Make glad the soul of Your servant,

For to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

5 For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon You.

6 Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;

And give heed to the voice of my supplications!

7 In the day of my trouble I shall call upon You, For You will answer me.

8 There is no one like You among the gods, O Lord,

Nor are there any works like Yours.

9 All nations whom You have made shall come and worship before You, O Lord,

And they shall glorify Your name.

10 For You are great and do wondrous deeds; You alone are God.

GENERAL BACKROUND

THE BOOK OF PSALMS WERE:

- written over a period of about 850 years,

- primarily functioned as the hymnbook of ancient Israel

- Demonstrates how to talk, meditate, and sing to God

-- THROUGH EXPERIENCE AFTER THESE HAVE BEEN DONE, WE LEARN BY GIVING OUR ALL TO GOD!

The NT is more didactic or instructional in nature, tend to focus on propositional truth

Old Testament poetry is not like this, but is more contemplative, appealing to our emotions using imagery that conveys meaning.

These images in Psalms connect with the emotional dimension of our relationship to God

The subject of the Book of Psalms is worship. Serious worship…getting real with God worship!

Worship is the act of offering to God what is due Him because of who He is.[1]

The Psalms take us to a place of recognizing who God is.

We need that more than anything!!

With over 1/3 of the Bible being poetry, it stands to reason we all could learn a little more on how to interpret the Psalms.

In fact, Martin Luther said “the Psalms was a little book and summery of the whole Old Testament.”

-Old Testament poetry is characterized by terseness or brevity and a high degree of structure.

-Psalms use fewer words because of its use of figurative language and imagery

-The text is structured around poetic lines of verse rather than around sentences and paragraphs.

-It is to be read line by line instead of sentence by sentence

-Two or three lines express a single thought (strophe)

-This feature of poetry called parallelism and is the dominant structure of poetry

-Within Psalm 86 we see this structure of parallelism

SPECIFIC BACKGROUND OF PSALM 86

The heading of Psalm 86 reads, “A Prayer of David” It is one of 73 times David’s name appears in the psalms.

Ps 86 is 1 of only 5 in the entire book designated as a prayer

“David was a warrior of unprecedented bravery,

a military genius,

and a brilliant statesman who led his nation to its Pinnacle of Power.

He was also a poet and musician and with all his heart was a lover of God.”[2]

No doubt there were many times when David was at the top of his game.

We also know that there were times when this man of God struggled with life itself.

In Psalm 86 we see a man on a mission,

David is seeking God.

Psalm 86 is a psalm of Supplication or pleading and Trust towards God.

I think there is much we can learn from David….how he pleaded to & trusted in God.

To learn from the Psalms we must observe how they are written.

There are 4 main types of parallelism: Developmental, Synonymous, Illustrative and Contrastive.

For the sake of time this morning we will look at only two types that are found in the first 2 verses of Psalm 86

Developmental and Synonymous

In verse 1 we see an example of Developmental parallelism

This is when the second line develops further the idea that was introduced in the first line

See in verse 1 how David pleaded to God.

1 Incline Your ear, O Lord, and answer me; (PLEA) For I am afflicted and needy. (WHY)

Here we see the opening of David’s prayer. He says listen to me God

The NLT says “bend down” or the KJV “bow down”

All have the imagery of God turning His head toward us and listening to what we have to say

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Application 1

This pleading and trusting David did then is exactly what we can to today in our culture

When the Psalms were written there was a danger of the children of Israel being tempted to follow other Gods

In our modern day we can parallel this temptation to Christians losing their zeal to follow God and turning to the world for guidance and comfort.

The Psalms remind us to follow and worship our creator because He is God!

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David’s (PLEA) was for God to listen to him (Can you hear the desperation in his voice?)

(WHY) did David need God to listen? Because he was afflicted and needy

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Expound: GOD IS GREAT!

Do you ever feel like you trying to get God’s attention?

To think that God would even listen is really something to think about

It’s awe inspiring, It’s incredible, It’s earthshaking to think the living God would even listen to us

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Notice also in verse 1, “Incline your ear”….Does God have ears?

If you are a Bible believer, you know that according to Scripture God does not have a body

John 4:24 tells us that God is a Spirit

We know God does not have a body like man.

Here we see what is called an anthropomorphism.

Anthropomorphism is a figure of speech which attributes human characteristics to God.

so that we can better understand His attributes.

For instance God’s eye speaks of His knowledge;

His hand speaks of His action;

His heart speaks of His love;

His face speaks of His presence,

and [His ear speaks of his ever-ready willingness to hear the prayers of sinners for salvation and or saints for supplication!]

Failing to understand what an anthropomorphism is, could lead to Mormonism.

Look at verse 1 again….

1 Incline Your ear, O Lord, and answer me; For I am afflicted and needy.

David’s prayer. He says listen to me God

The reason… “…for I am afflicted and needy”

Many lost and saved alike turn to anything other than Jesus…how sad

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Expound: WE ARE IN GREAT NEED OF GOD!

Everyone no matter the sin or background needs our great Savior, Jesus Christ!

David knew he had to get God’s attention because of his condition. He was in great need!

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Look at verse 2 - we see an example of synonymous parallelism

This is when there is a close similarity of each line and is re-stated

2 Preserve my soul, for I am a godly man; O You my God, save Your servant who trusts in You.

Here we see the similarity of “preserving” a soul in verse 1 and “saving” of the servant in verse 2

Likewise we see “I am a Godly man” of verse 1 and a characteristic of a Godly man…one that “trusts” in God (vs 2)

The word godly found in verse 2 is translated

“holy” in the KJV, “faithful” in the NIV,

“loyal” in the NET, and “devoted” in the NLT

This word holy or godly is the Hebrew word “Hasid” taken from the Hebrew noun “Hased” and means godly.

Entire books have been written on just this word

Hased is used 240 times in the OT.

It is one of the most important vocabulary words in OT theology.

We can identify three basic meanings of the word “hesed” which always interact:

Strength, Steadfastness, and Love.

We can see how these words are descriptive of “godly”

Hased implies a personal involvement and commitment in a relationship beyond the rule of law

A relationship founded on Strength, Steadfastness, and Love.

Now that’s a relationship I want with God and family! Amen!

It has been said that the word Devotion is the single English word that best capable of capturing the nuance of Hased

Although Hesed can be giving an act of mercy or love to another, it is most prominently used as a term to summarize and characterize a life of sanctification within and in response to the covenant.

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EXPOUND WE HAVE A COVENANT KEEPING GOD

HE IS FAITHFUL

Isaiah 55:3 3 “Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, According to the faithful mercies shown to David.

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Hesed has both God and Man as it subject.

With all of the different ways Hesed is used in the context of man doing it, Hesed is one of the most central characteristics of God

It His loving-kindness that is offered to people.

This is the thing that David was perusing in Psalm 86

Look at:

3 Be gracious to me, O Lord,

For to You I cry all day long.

4 Make glad the soul of Your servant,

For to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

5 For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon You.

Here in verse 5 we see God’s Hesed, His “loving-kindness”

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EXPOUND GOD IS GOOD!

It is the loving kindness that offers redemption to fallen mankind and it is also God’s lovingkindness or Hesed that helps us when we need to face the troubles in life.

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When preparing this message I could not figure out exactly what God was trying to tell me. Perhaps more than any other I struggled with the preparation of it until I read what I believe is the key to understanding what God was telling me all along.

It is found in the preceding chapter, Psalm 85 verse 10

Psalm 85:10 Lovingkindness and truth have met together;

Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

This Psalm is attributed to Korah, he too was pursuing God’s Lovingkindness

Vines tells us that words used in synonymous parallelism with Hesed help to define and explain it (truth)

Vines tells us that the biblical usage often speaks of someone doing, showing, or keeping “Hased.”

Here the NASB translates it truth but in the KJV it is translated as “mercy”

God’s loving kindness, mercy, and truth are what David was perusing the entire time in Psalm 86,

Read 1-10

These things are the most important things our heavenly Father offered us through Jesus

God described one of His most central characteristics with one simple Hebrew word, Hesed.

With His son Jesus God ultimately demonstrated the actions of a covenant relationship offered to us based upon His Mercy and Loving-kindness

It is the single biggest thing we as earthly Fathers can pursue.

It is the most important thing we can show and pass on to our children.

The story of God’s Mercy, Lovingkindness, Strength, Steadfastness, and most importantly the knowledge of who God is and how to properly worship Him with our lives.

This is our duty; may we walk in it.

What is God saying to you TODAY, and what are you going to do about it?

PRAYER Father…

If the Lord is speaking to you and you feel that is the case, please slip your hand up quickly so I can see it and then lower it. I won’t embarrass you or call upon you I promise. This is between you and the Lord. Anyone in the room?

Christian, perhaps this message spoke to you today and you need to do business with God?

Now is the time. Jesus Christ is the answer for any problem you have.

[1] Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), Job 42:10.

[2] Halley’s Bible Handbook, p 248